sock yarn

I think I've found my favorite base ever. At least for sock yarn. Springy, bouncy, scrunchy, and so fluffy--and when knitted up, almost velvety on the purl side. Shibui Sock has this base, and Aslan Trends Santa Fe (as far as I can tell), and Claudia Handpainted Sock and Koigu KPPPM (don't ask me what that stands for). A lovely base that looks like a little spring.

Here it is in the hank as Claudia Handpaints:





and here as Santa Fe.



It almost looks beaded. Of course, all the colors it comes in are delicious, but there's just a little something special about this base...

Oh, I'm back from my trip. I acquired a little yarn...



that's about a third of it.

offshoot

One of the offshoots of my buzzing brain is a great vasty planning party involving yarn. Which I will share with you. because you like yarn. Probably. First, though, pretty pictures.




This yarn is handmaiden casbah sock and it is what I consider a very high end luxury yarn. Sort of a ferrari of yarns. It is gorgeous to look at, and it is equally gorgeous to use. It is mostly merino, with cashmere making it even softer and nylon giving it enough stretch to be sock-useful. Appropriate for a sock weight yarn. One skein makes this lovely cowl



which has acquired buttons since its photoshoot, but was also tragically gifted to a stunningly appropriate recipient before more pictures could be taken. There were leftovers. This is simple garter stitch with a bunch of tiny one stitch button holes, because I really wanted to show off the complexity and richness of these colors. They're tonal blues and greens with delicious brown throughout--the best colors of a spring day, barring flowers. The colors are the primary draw for this yarn for me--their intensity and collaboration transform these skeins into art.

This yarn is so luscious I bought more of it, because when I saw these colors, all I could do was gape. Someone captured my favorite moments of fall--in yarn.




Aside from the colors, the yarn texture is so soft that it is difficult to stop rubbing it on my face. I have always found merino to be a particularly squishy and soft yarn, but combining that with just a hint of cashmere gives the yarn drape and weight, a more secure presence on this earth. It feels like somebody spun up some clouds and it lays like water on the skin. It is also warm and toasty, making it a fantastic winter hat/mitten/sock yarn. I made a cowl because--well, I'm not sure why. Probably because I thought my feet would get too hot in it (I like sort of cold feet) and because I wanted that lusciously silky softness squished against my chin whenever possible.

Anyway, back to the main point. The point being that I spend a lot of time thinking and planning and organizing my yarn. This usually results in knitting goals, which are always rather fun. Last year I succesfully accomplished 3 of my 7 goals, put 2 on the side due to extenuating circumstances, and had 2 that were 100% unreasonable for my time and personality. I made my first shawl, knit myself 3 pairs of socks (all right, the heel is a bit off center on the last one, and the cuff is just the tiniest bit too tight. I might have to make some improvements), and learned how to cable (and then promptly learned how to cable without a cable needles). I wasn't able to felt my intended project, nor to knit an epic estonian lace project, since those objects were all in the U.S. and I was temporarily in Denmark. And steeking, which I added in November, and finishing all my UFOs were both entirely unreasonable for the year.

Still, I have new goals for 2012, because I like to reach and push myself, but mostly because I like to plan and think ahead of time.

1) Stash Appreciation

I've travelled a lot of places in the past 9 months, and I've acquired a lot of yarn while doing so. I'm still on vacation for another two weeks, and part of that vacation will be yarn crawling with family and friends, but once I get back home I really want to spend a lot of time with the stash I've acquired. To achieve this, I won't buy any yarn for three months (except what is necessary to complete a project I've already begun). Now, this doesn't preclude knitting supplies--I really want to try some knitpicks options, and I want to get that little suitcase/cover/holder/thing for keeping dpns on a sock in progress, and maybe a magnetic pattern/chart holder since I am intending to do more lace this year as well. But the yarn can be on hold for three simple months. It really isn't that hard. As a reward, any money I almost but do not end up spending on yarn I can save for a big yarn crawl when my sisters visit in October.

2) Year of Lace

I love lace. I love the way it looks, the efficiency of getting 1500 yards for $14, the thinness of its plies and how it makes a very effective garment, and how that garment can change a lot just by varying the needles used to knit it up. I have acquired a fair bit of laceweight in the past couple of years, and I've also collected 3-4 books on lace. But I've never actually knit anything up out of it. My goal is to knit until I use up my stash laceweight (or at least 50% of it). As a reward, I will allow myself to wrestle fight ARRANGE to acquire some wollmeise lacegarn, somehow.

3) finish old holiday WIPs

I hurt my wrist two weeks before the holidays this year so a lot of presents got put on hiatus. I'm recovering, and I'm behind, and I have a lot of things I'd like to do. I have a hat to make, a shawl/lap blanket, another huge blanket in stockinette, four pairs of mitts and a scarf to make. I'd like to get those out of the way ASAP, except for the blankets.

4) beading

This year I really want to try some beading. Mostly I've been too lazy to take my yarn to a store and figure out which beads go best with it. In order to motivate myself I've arranged for some planned WIPs to require beads. See #5.

5) planned objects

1. colorwork mitts for L
2. cabled mitts for A.J.
3. hat for J.
4. not too hot mittens for S. (I seemed to have lost the yarn. WTF?)
5. maybe a scarf for A.J. if I have patience with this splitty yarn that I acquired
6. charcoal mitts for knititforward2011, and mailing the rest of those FOs off (and deciding if I must ripout and replace the sari silk scarf and use its silk to do something different, bigger, better...
7. continue plugging away on big green blanket with 1000 intarsia ends to deal with
8. acquire sufficient yarn for big ole lap blanket for S.

That's the holiday gifts, though the last two don't have to be done for a year, and 5. is probably going to drop out.

Of course I want to abandon all these responsibilites, as I see them, and knit the following:

1. Haruni in tiny green alpaca lace (almost done with the first ball. I have three. this is going to take forever
2. Haruni in thick brown linen (it's... so fast, and so much fun! and that's my souvenir Spain yarn)
3. the red hat. That yarn was so thick and irresistable, I couldn't help but cast on right away
4. Shipwreck in madelinetosh laceweight in the thunderstorm colorway. my first big lace of the year and I want it so badly even though it will require a lot of work
5. a beaded estonian lace project with my big skein of red baruffa cashwool
6. Juno lace stole with my silvery sea silk and beads of some sort--maybe black? or another shawl/excellent use of sea silk
7. Daedelus in my grashupfer wollmeise. I love it--it looks gorgeous, and like it will fit me really well, and if I don't have enough yarn (I got 4 skeins of wollmeise) I think I can do some of the sleeves in my 5th skein of very-similar-green
8. felted french press slippers--I got this pattern for the holidays and am in love with it, but I don't have enough feltable yarn just yet. I will have to pick a nice color and use this to learn how to felt
9. fiddly toys! I have a third of a snail, a burning desire for a kraken and a crocodile, a pattern for a tiny elephant, and a request for cat toys. and I am not afraid to use that little list either
10. family socks. I am teaching my sisters to knit socks and I need to figure out the best/easiest heel for them (we are doing toe-up socks). this requires me to be one step ahead. instead I am woefully behind, as always. The socks are, of course, all in the same colorway.
11. A shirt out of my Spa and a shirt out of my madelinetosh dk
12. something stranded colorwork and intense with my six skeins of spud and chloe fine
13. something stranded colorwork and intense with my black and chocolate-cherry sock yarns
14. also, maybe invent a cityscape pattern out of that weird berroco mosaic stuff I acquired, and that other mitten-appropriate yarn
15. A purple shawl for A. If I can't do it with that wool-cotton blend, then find something new and exciting to do it with
16. A clapotis for R. with that light pink stuff
17. fingerless mitts for R. from Dr. Who with the new pink dk weight stuff
18. design a norweigan star hat that doesn't suck for S.
19. Start this year's blanket/throw from the chenille; decide how much I hate it
20. make a market bag with my plarn, darnit!

after careful inspection, I think I've done too much planning and have too many goals. Oh well. look, shiny things!

buzzing

some days it feels like my head is full of bees, thousands of them swarming all at once and humming and heating, and none of them coming through loud and clear on their own, but all of them making my head feel full and loud. Only the bees are thoughts all at once.

There's so much swirling in there, things I am considering--love, and relationships, and sexuality and gender and attraction, and how all those things interact, and then overlapping with that is the knowledge that social construction informs and shapes much of all those things, and that social construction is steeped in, based on bias that reinforces things like racism and sexism and all sorts of isms. And then with that, there's the knowledge of my own lack of experience (I have not done much dating), and how that is informed by my life history which is its own complicated soup of emotions and learning to deal with the family that I have and what each of its members means. This makes it a bit difficult to not answer, but even ask questions like, "do I like him?" or her or whatever, because I'm not sure it's even the right question.

And that's only one small fragment of what I am thinking about all at once, because there is also work, which means research, which is 3-5 projects at any given time and each of them is an intricate list of details of things I've done or need to do, people I really should have contacted a long while ago, and a load of guilt for not having done anything particularly sooner--and the understanding that the guilt is not only something that everyone feels, but that it is also socially constructed, and that it reveals flaws in the very fabric of scientific training and the whole system of science, and that it is compounded by my gender and race and socioeconomic status. (and now as well the fact that my socioeconomic class is changing, and I am blending in with a system where I don't fit or belong because I am not from any similar background either, but I blend in nonetheless....) All of that comes along with just thinking about work, so not only am I stressed about not working enough, I am stressed by the fact that this problematic system exists and is not only still in use but very rarely questioned, and that there is very very very little I can do to change that, especially at this stage in my career.

Then the need to work is compounded by my own concerns about my health--I think I may have ADD and that that is feeding the merciless cycle of procrastination, work overload, and easy distraction that have led to me having FIVE projects going on at once; and also I know for my own sake I need to remain grounded in real life and have things like decent amounts of sleep, regular food and exercise, and a bit of alternative mental stimulation--and then that brings crashing down on me the social problems with being a fat woman, and the health problems I wish to addrss, and all the social influences that contribute to my desire to lose weight, and the eternal debate between "becoming healthy" and "fitting a societal norm of beauty" that has been going on for more years than I can recall.

Meanwhile, in all the nooks and crannies, my brain continues crafting--thinking about yarn and projects I can make, learning new techniques in knitting, becoming interested in art and architecture and photography at least as a spectator, and always always poking and prodding away at a vast collection of stories and poetry and constructions of words and phrases that pour my ideas out into the world.

And then I think about my friends, and how long it has been since I have contacted some of them, and what sorts of responsibilities I have and have been shirking with regards to them (here's a hint--lots. I have been lucky enough to acquire a large number of friends in a variety of places and I miss them all and they are dreadfully neglected when I am not immediately near them)... and this makes me want to knit for them, and do some scheduling and traveling and setting up times to see them all. And usually I am questioning the last time I spoke to them, how I may have snubbed or insulted them, how I can have discussions with them without pouring all this out at them, without becoming that freak that just talks about herself all the time and gets really easily distracted midsentence and keeps blathering about yarn, and THEN I begin questioning the fact that I'm questioning myself, because my friends have told me very clearly that it's more annoying than anything I might've possibly done to annoy them originally.

There's more, too--because there is the internet to provide me with new mental inspiration, and memories to revive of old thoughts and paths of thinking, and also I am still growing and evolving and learning what it means to live in this world (and perhaps how even if everything is going so terribly wrong with society that I'm not sure how it is possible to have hope for the future, that maybe it's just that the world keeps going anyway, despite all injustices and stupidities), and on top of all that I am planning, planning, making lists and schedules for myself, thinking about when I will sit down and do certain things, thinking about what I need to do and think and accomplish and what goals I need to aim for, planning the types of projects I want to knit and what I want to do with each individual skein of yarn, and dreaming the next or the best scenes in my current story, and thinking about which poets I should read to get back into poetry and planning another book of poetry based on Issac Newton's Celestial Mechanics book, and figuring out ways to work science and language and transition and doorways all together...

it just gets... sort of overwhelming at times. it's hard to explain to people what is going on in my head. No one asks, but that's hardly the point. The point is, sometimes I sit down and have discussions with friends, and it's hard to explain to them why I am disagreeing with them, why I jump among topics, why I follow a thread from the beginning of a conversation and end way out in the middle of nowhere. That's how I think. Things flash up and connect in my head and they're all related and I am thinking all of them all the time. but I am just as likely to forget instantly all the important things we were just discussing. I am dreadful at names, for example, because I am so concentrated on how I should respond that I don't pay attention as the name is given, usually. I forget details because my brain is flashing onwards, a new bee staggering to the surface for a moment with a new thought, before slipping down back into the great whirling abyss of it all. In some ways this is probably helpful for me--for research, for writing, for friendship--my ability to have flashes of thoughts occur to me, triggered by an unlikely or sparse prompt, and as for friendship, my tendency to voice those thoughts.

but I also keep interrupting peoplke, and I keep forgetting. I do not know if I like being overwhelmed. it feels all fuzzy and out of control sometimes. Bit off more than I can chew.

things

Things I will miss about Denmark:

Some of the kindest and smartest people I have ever met
A ridiculously welcoming and warm work environment (with the bonus of the best work-based christmas party ever)
The solitude--the haunting and echoing loneliness of being in this city of spires and no skyscrapers, where everything is quiet at night and the lights glittering on the far side of the black and isolated lake make it seem welcoming, but so far away.
The food--damn, can the Danish bake! They also have some mean shawarma places that VA doesn't do any justice to whatsoever.
The city's attitude towards the holidays. I think it encompasses the absolute best parts of the holidays in the states--tiny white lights glittering through the darkness, the smell of pine trees wet in the rain, christmas markets and hot wine, and the gathering of the ones you love.
The outdoor mentality--it's very much a city good for walking and biking, for spending time out of doors.
An excellent bus and metro system
The ability to go pretty much anywhere without it costing $3000 and requiring a visa six months ahead of time.
The wind that sweeps this city every day and makes lovely pulling sounds on the windows.
Lots of yarn stores.

Things I won't miss about Denmark:

Not being near my family and friends
Not having a cat with me.
Smokers. Everywhere. Can't wait to be free of them.
Not having a car.
Being alone.
How frickin' expensive it is to live here. In most cities you can get a quick cheap lunch for <$10 without much effort. Here, you are luck to find anything <$20 at any given time. Laundry costs me $5 wash, $5 dry.
It being gray all the time. Damn do I miss some sunlight.
Having to say "Sorry, I only speak English" every time any one bothers to talk to me--and also the fact that that so very rarely happens.
The way everything in the city closes at 5pm every day of the week, 3pm on Saturday, and all day Sunday.

goals

Well, it's October. Only 3 months left before the year is over. Time to review my goals.

(she says, as if she did this with any regularity or consistency).

I set myself a few knitting goals this year:


1) make my first shawl evar
2) try making a shetland or estonian lace shawl with my 1200 yds of red laceweight
3) Socks! at least 3 pairs, for myself
4) learn how to cable
5) felt for the first time evar
6) Steek!
7) finish all my UFO HAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAA


well at least #7 is accompanied by realistic laughter.

1) Goal Exceeded!

I did this back in April--I made a mini shawl from Araucania Multi, fingering weight, green and brown wool, mostly following EZ's pi shawl pattern but inventing a leafy lace edging as I finished it. Badly inventing, I might add. Then in May I did a Summer Flies shawl using some luscious purple Malabrigo sock yarn that made me drool. So on the regular shawl front, I have exceeded expectations

2) Prevented by Outside Forces

So I had fully intended to make Queen Silvia or the Crown Prince shawl from my book o estonian lace, but since that book got left at home for the half of the year I intended to knit it in, it was doomed from the start. But I am not one to be thwarted (bwahaha! okay at least when it comes to knitting!), so I cast on for Print o' the Wave with some tiny tiny purple cotton instead. This stuff is so thin I think it might be cobweb weight--it's more like sewing thread than yarn. I picked it up at Habu Textiles in April and I think I maybe should have asked them to ply it for me or something, but it's working up to a lovely stole/scarf--it might be too skinny to be a proper stole in this thread. Oh well.

3) Goal In Progress

This is a goal that I'm going to need to put some serious work in if I want to accomplish it this year. Things looked pretty good in August when I completed a pair of socks in +/- a week, but the September socks have become the October socks and the October socks have disappeared. Part of the problem is the September socks are the often thwarted pair I've described in the previous post--lots of ripping back. Fortunately the yarn is holding sturdy, and I'm at the ankle of the first sock from the pair. I still have a long way to go, but if I can finish them up in October and cast on for the third pair by November, I should be in good shape to finish by the end of the year.

4) Goal Accomplished!

I figured out that the trick to cabling is that you don't do it every bobdamned row (except for some cables). This is what I get for teaching myself by "basically understanding how it's done" as opposed to reading or even watching an internet video or, you know, following any directions whatsoever. What can I say? instead of learning how to cable, I foraged how to do it instead.

5) Prevented by Outside Forces

Again, this is a goal/project that got delayed due to my 6 months abroad. I finished knitting the item I want to felt--a small bag--but it's at home, awaiting my eventual purchase of a zipping laundry bag and my return to my abode and kittens. It will be an interesting event when it finally occurs. I also have a couple of small toys in progress that I plan to felt, so it's only the last step that awaits me.

6) Goal In Progress

But that is little progress indeed. I decided to add this goal this year when it became clear that felting wasn't going to happen, and when I finally started a sweater and realized they're not impossible. Now, the only progress I've made so far is to pick out a pattern--Knitty Deep Fall 2011's Takoma, don't ask me why, I just love it--but I haven't even acquired the yarn yet. Still, there's no better place for skinny, sticky wool, perfect for stranded knitting and steeking, than here. I have a hard time finding even worsted weight wool. And I'm in the middle of a pullover, so the odds of me finishing that and the steeky project by the end of the year are pretty slim. But I am going to try! (and more than that, I'm going to buy the yarn for a third sweater while I'm here. This wool+cotton blend is awesome and I think they have some tweedy colors too. I love the tweeds!)

7) HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

hahahahahahahahhhhahahahahhahahaha.

Like this was ever going to happen. Any progress has been in the opposite direction--I have tons of WIPs and planned projects (where I designate the yarn to something, but haven't cast on yet), but I'm lucky that I've finished 10% of what I've started :P


So, do you have goals for your knitting? I like to organize mine by year, but really these are more steps in a life time of goals than something that must be learned/done NOWNOWNOW. How do you do it? go about learning, and planning? or do you run willynilly into knitting? Not like there's anything wrong with that--sounds kind of fun.

off

It is an off day for me. The second of my two conferences is over, and my presentation is done. My flight leaves at 5 in the afternoon here, so I have some 4+ odd hours to fill before worrying about taxis and etc. Since I have no laptop charger (of all the damned things to forget at home) and I only have 2 hours of battery life left, I am snuggled into bed at the hotel, reading knitting blog archives and checking out the changing faces of the mountains from the window. Soon I'll go down and get some breakfast, take a shower, and knit on my sweater (hoping to finish the body before I get on the airplane today--there's only an inch or two left, and I have to figure out some sort of edging/bindoff that will prevent it from rolling and not ride up my hips), drop a box off to be mailed from the front desk, leave my luggage as I check out, arrange my transportation, and go to a local museum for an hour or two. Then I'll fly for one billion hours and get some sleep and knit some lace or some socks.

I do have some (read: 400) papers to read as new references from the conference. But that's all right, I will worry about them later.

What all am I knitting? For this trip I brought my in-progress sweater, the damnblue socks, and my current purple lace. I figured I only had 1 ball of sweater yarn left so I'd probably run out of it, and then I thought I would get more done on the socks during the actual conference itself (lots of time to knit during 10 hours of talks, but it turns out I was busy taking notes, running programs, and writing my very brief presentation). The lace was for variety, and it's a small project. I hope to work on it on the 10 hour plane ride back, and I've written down the pattern to that purpose.

The problem with the damnblue socks is that I've been working on them since the last conference, and I've had to rip them back about 4 times now. Not because of the pattern (Chevrolace, from Knitty)--it's a very cute pattern. Not because of the yarn, either:



It's a lovely blue yarn from Trekking, in this gorgeous sky blue color, and it's sproingy and a little stiff but it softens up lovely after a wash, and it doesn't split and it works very nicely on my size 1s or 0s.

No, mainly I've ripped back due to incompetence. The first time I did the sock as directed and it was too big, so I took out a pattern repeat and tried again. That was better, but then in the midst of the last conference I had to improvise a short-row heel and three inches later I discovered it was too tight. Rip, rip, rip. I left it alone for two weeks in frustration and came back to it on the airplane, did a flap and wrap-and-turn heel, picked up stitches for the gusset, knit an inch during the current conference, and figured out that the ankle was too big. So now I'm about to do more decreasing for a couple of inches before starting the pattern.

The pattern is a 12 row repeat; perhaps that's the issue. It's a bit long, so it makes things either too big or too small. I suspect that after decreasing 12 stitches I will now find the ankle is too small, whereupon I will throw this beautiful yarn out the airplane, laughing maniacally as it disappears into the equally beautiful sky right before the air pressure difference sucks me out too.

Review: Happy Feet

Let me take a moment to step back from this vacation/work frenzy and share a yarn with you.

I have long loved sock yarns, mostly because their yardage/cost ratio is very high, and I can't help being somewhat frugal. I am always reluctant to pay $10 for 100 yards of worsted, but for 400 yards of fingering weight it seems much more reasonable.

With that in mind, I picked up some Happy Feet sock yarn by Plymouth Yarns sometime last winter, probably from the sale bin of my LYS--so I'm not sure how much I paid for them. The colors were warm red and brown, absolutely delicious. For the longest time they just sat in my stash, but I tossed them in my bag of travel knitting. When it came time for me to go to Stockholm, I had decided I wanted, nay, needed to knit myself some socks, so this was the only yarn I took with me.

This yarn was a great re-introduction to socks. It is very squishy but also firm, not splitty at all. I worked it on size 1 DPNs and I have a very firm cozy fabric on my feet right now, keeping my toes warm. Since I was improvising a sock pattern from the toe-up, I ripped and re-ripped this yarn, but it was just as delightful on the reknits as it was on the first time around. It has a bit of spring to it--that's the nylon--that makes it resilient and pleasant. The only downside I found was that it pills up a bit while I'm walking around, but that's to be expected for things with a lot of contact, socks or the elbows of sweaters for example. This would probably make a great hat or shawl. The yardage, too, was generous--I cast on from the two separate skeins for my socks to try and match them, and knit a 3-4 inch cuff, and I have plenty left over for a sock yarn blanket or maybe even enough to make an additional set of anklet-length socks.

The best thing about this yarn, though, is its warm, toasty colors and its subtle variation. You could do lace patterns easily in it--I did ribbing and cables, and they absolutely pop.

Gratuitous shot of yarn on a beach:



That's the Baltic Sea, there. I dipped my toes in it, then climbed back up the rocks to have lunch and take a picture.