ShanKnits

Finished pi is even yummier

I finished it! My camera's back in working order, so instead of explaining too much I'll just show you.

Pattern: Elizabeth Zimmermann's Pi Shawl from Knitters Almanac (See alteration below)
Yarn: Renyolds Soft Sea Wool in purple. I used about 4.5 skiens
Needles: Size 7 needles, dpns, 16" circ, and 24" circ
Time to knit: 2 weeks. Possibly my fastest project ever!
Comments: I used EZ's lace pattern, but stopped 3 rows after I hit 576 stitches. I made up an edging, wanting something with diamonds like the pattern, and not wanting to copy, or use another few balls doing her garter stitch edging.
Thanks to Miriam, for the inspiration. I also have to give my husband props for picking up the last skien for me at Black Sheep. By himself. And taking the pictures. And vacuuming the day before so that i could block. He rocks!

Pi is yummy

I made the mistake of trying to clean the other day. This is not inherently a mistake, but in this case I "put my camera away." Since it normally lives on the kitchen counter I'm not sure where I would have thought is a good place to "put it away." But as soon as I find it I promise photos. And I'll update my projects on Ravelry. It's hard to get excited about doing that without pictures. After all, the whole purpose of having publicly visible project galleries is to show off, right?

Well... my blogging, knitting, spinning, and thinking have been a little stymied lately as I've tried to find a job. But I've decided not to let work, or the search for, get in the way of my life.

I had two shawls in progress right now, and had decided that after I finished those I'd probably take a break from shawls for a while. I haven't been wearing them that much, and they are the kind of item that I feel, at my age, that I can wear at a job once I'm established, but I don't want to start off wearing things that make me look more... well, old-lady-ish than I want to seem. It's not so much that I mind seeming old-lady-ish, but I've been applying for some IT jobs, and those guys usually barely want to acknowledge that you're female, it's good not to overwhelm them with my lace-wearing, knitting, colorful girly self. That's for after the benefits kick in.

But then I went to Balck Sheep and saw Mim's Pi Shawl. I've hardly knit anything else for 4 days, and that's HUGE for me.

Different needles mean different gauge... right?

I blame the Yarn Harlot. I picked up a Paton's leaflet a few years ago in Vancouver because I liked one of the cardigans, and then I took it home, put it on the bookcase, and promptly forgot about it. Until, that is, a few weeks ago when I was looking at blogs and I realized that it was that very cardigan.

(Three needle sizes)

I had five skeins of Patons Classic Wool (in Leaf Green, quelle surprise)  and Michael's was having a sale, so I picked up another two. I took them home, very, very excited to get going and immediately started to swatch.* I swatched on 7s. Too loose. Not a problem. I swatched on 6s. Still loose, but I'm generally a loose knitter, so this wasn't much a a surprise, so I moved down to 5s. Still... wait a minute! I looked at my record of this experiment, and I had gotten the exact, and I mean EXACT, same gauge on all three needle sizes.

(Three completely different size needles.)

I don't understand. Has my brain mentally set some sort of limit for this kind of yarn and it will, no matter what needle size, adjust my tension accordingly, or was... ack, I don't even know what the options are. But I don't understand.

(Three different pairs of NEEDLES!)

Help?

*Sometimes I do swatch. Lace and scarves? Not a chance. But for a sweater.. I'm no dummy.

Presenting...

I've got to thank Andrea. She gave me some great ideas for names for my wheel. I especially liked her suggestion Eliza, but I have a cousin named Eliza and my husband is still trying to learn the names of my cousins, who are legion. So that seemed a little mean. I was trying to think of something that would say that she is at the same time pretty and elegant, and yet still hard-working. Eliza got me wondering if the name Elsa was related to Elizabeth. And it turns out that it is... and this got me thinking (further.) Elsa.. Elsa. For two days I walked around the house trying to remember why I had it in my head that I had a fondness for that name. And then I realized.

She was Norwegian. (How knitterly.) She was young and beautiful. She was in a difficult situation, but rarely, probably only once, did she shrink from the challenge that that presented her, and she was, with one exception, loyal. So, not perfect, but still generally noble.

So, I present to you... my spinning wheel. Ilsa Lund.

Oh... yeah. Sweaters, I guess

I taught a friend to knit a few weeks ago, and Saturday we went yarn shopping. As so often happens, we got to talking about sweaters, and as many a knitter does, she said "I don't know, I don't think that I could do a sweater. Too much money, too much time. I'll just stick to smaller things." I nodded and said "Yeah, I'm not that into sweaters myself." And I really didn't think that I am.

It's not because of the time commitment. I know that often you can knit a sweater faster, or at least in less stitches, than either socks or lace. Sweaters can be about as plain or fancy as you'd like, and can be made with yarns ranging from lace-weight to the bulkiest of the bulky. But they aren't really my thing. Right?

I'm still in the middle of the Great Stash Re-organization of the Winter of 2007-2008. One thing I've realized is that yarn is more compact and stacks better when its balled and ready to go. It's also more fun to "shop" for in the stash. As I've been doing this I've realized that I have enough for 3 or four sweaters or cardigans.  I'm surprised. I really am. I guess it's time to knit some sweaters, though.

Oh, I've picked a name for my wheel, but I'll tell you more about that tomorrow.

Dill and peas

We have now entered that part of the winter when I start to crave greens and bright... oh let's be honest, anything but grey and white are good. Flowery colors, sunny yellows, sky blues, they all make me happy this time of year. but nothing does it so completely as the early spring green. The green that is the color of sunlight on through baby leaves.

It's not always a conscious thing, either. I offer two examples:

1) Dinner tonight. Having gotten home from the shop after 9pm I wasn't really in the right mood to think about dinner. Mike was playing basketball with the boys from the ward, so I only really needed to cook for me. (While food at a basketball activity might not seem guaranteed, they were so eager to have all of the guys attend that they mentioned three times on the flier, and another 3 on the announcement e-mail, that there WOULD BE REFRESHMENTS.) I opened the cupboard and saw that there was just a little more than a serving of bow-tie pasta, so I threw it in the water. Upon realizing that I was out of Parmesan cheese, my standby pasta topping with a little olive oil and butter, I opened the fridge and saw the sour cream and instantly thought "Dill!" and then, as is natural when i think "Dill!" I thought "peas!" It was quick, easy, had a vegetable, and was the perfect greens.

2) After browsing for a few hours last night I decided that I wanted to knit Muir. I walked into the second bedroom and opened the box of lace-weights and saw two things. One was three skeins of Knitpicks Shadow in Lost Lake Heather. It's very pretty and looked a lot like the yarn used in the pattern, color-wise. But then I saw her. One skein, but obviously very fine and therefore probably something that is at least 1,000 yards. The label has been gone for a while now, but I'm relatively certain that it's Grinasco's Merinosilk. And according to this site, the color is called "Spring Green". Kind of meant to be, wouldn't you say? Here she is.** It's a she. i don't know why, she just is.

* Light sour cream, I'm afraid. I'm getting so stodgy now that I'm 30.
** I have photography/lighting/focus issues. I'm working on it, I promise.

I want to have wings, but all I've got is stockinette.

I have been trying to try harder to use my stash instead of shopping for yarn quite as much. While this means that I have, to some extent, replaced shopping for yarn with shopping for patterns to use with the yarns in my stash, and the needles necessary to do those things, it does mean less coming in, and that's important right now.

Last week I realized that one of the consequences of not moving much is an increase of pat rack possibilities. I lived in the same house from ages 2-18, then moved into another where I lived until 27, so I could always put the excess of... well, anything, in the basement. My parents called and asked me to move as much as possible out of the basement, meaning something like 10 boxes. Afghans from when I was 8, baby blankets for baby dolls, and plenty of experimental crochet.

For some reason this urge to use what I have has especially meant a desire to use up the lace-weight in my stash. Space-wise this is completely illogical. The lace-weight in my stash takes up one smallish container, while I have 5 skeins of Cascade 220 that take up almost as much room. It may be that I have 6 or 7 projects worth of lace-weight, while the Cascade will be one project, maybe two. In any case, I want lace. Lots and lots of lace.

I actually thought to myself yesterday, "Hey, I want to knit some lace. I wish I had something on the needles." After a few seconds I remembered that I have a Seraphim on the needles, but I hate the thing right now.* It's been in hibernation 3 times now, and it's tempting to set it aside again. Part of it is the needles that I have been using, the Addi Lace Needles. While many people love them, I know, they are only all right with me. The sharper points are great, but the finish on them seems to be tarnishing with use. And they smell like old pennies.

The other problem is that this project, so far, qualifies as stockinette hell. I don't wholly understand this, as I am not the only one that I've heard mention this. We, as knitters, do yards, and sometimes miles, of stockinette in our knitting careers. But for some reason this one is really taxing me. Maybe I had in my head that it was lace, so expected to jump into lace knitting, but instead I'm in the middle of trying to go from 7 stitches to something like 243, increasing just 4 a row. It will be worth it, I don't doubt that, but I'd like to be to the fun parts now.

The good news is that Chris, who is awesome, put a Knitpicks Options cable and needle tips on her last order for me, so now I can try that out instead. I am very excited for that. Plus the set actually came with two cables with end caps so that I can have two projects on the same needles, as I am still working on my nefarious plan to work on 2 projects at the exact same time. (No matter how fast you've seen me go from project to project I have not actually mastered this yet.) (Give me time.)  So, optimistically, I offer you a photo of the project in progress.

* The current distaste for the thing has nothing to do with how the pattern is written or the design itself. Mim always designs beautiful things. All issues contained herein are mine.

Betty? Beth?

I think that maybe my wheel needs a name. Technically it's an Ashford Elizabeth. An old school one too, before they re-designed it. But I don't know.. Beth? Betty? Betty seems a little.. well, Flintstones. I should mention at this point that my wheel is very pretty. It's painted blue and had tole-painted flowers on it. (I can't take any credit for this, I bought it second-hand.)

So maybe Beth... but really... I need something really, really pretty, but not hollow sounding. (IE. no Paris, Nicky, Nicole, etc.) So, if you have any ideas...

You win some, you lose some.

Normally my knitting ends in medium to fabulous results, depensing on my passion for the pattern, my skill level, and the fact that I actually put enough energy in it to finishing it. Generally if I feel like it's all falling apart I don't end up finishing. I don't say this to brag, in fact it's really quite the oppsoite. I don't feel that this says much good about my work ethic or sense of adventure, but if you know my ratio of starting projects to finishing them you'll understand. And while I don't think that says anything great about me either, I've decided not to beat myself up about it. I'm okay. Finishing knitting projects is not a moral issue. This is a hobby, for Pete's sake. (Who is Pete? Why are we so concerend about his sake?)  But what I'm building to is that every once in a while I accidentally finish a disaster. And when I do it's generally unfixable, and by that I mean felted.

I know wehre it all went wrong. I was writing down the pattern for the item in question, as I really don't want to buy the book. It's a lovely book, but as with CDs, I generally have to like 3 of the projects (or songs) within to buy it, and I knew that my hold at the library was going to be in the next day. And so I cruised through writing down the beginning of the "thing" so that I could cast on and work on what I could until I could pick up the copy at the library. But I missed one line. One little, tiny line. And what that one, itty-bitty, teensy, tiny line said was "knit for 30 rows."

I knew that it didn't look right, but attributed this to having used a different yarn than the book used. Oh, sweet denial. So what was going to be my entry for the ABC-Along, B is for Brigham, as I photographed the unfelted hat on a bust of Brigham Young, Utah's first govenor and second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

It has found a new life as "B is for Bowl". But hey, we needed a fruit bowl anyway.

It's 1:30 am, do you know where your dpns are?

I tried to sleep, I really did. Especially since Mike has to be up at 5am tomorrow, I tried to lie very still next to him and pretend that I was asleep, figuring that pretending would turn into being, but no. Time passed, or more to the point time utterly failed to pass me out.

So here I am at 1:30am. On the bright side I've wound a few hanks into balls, started a load of laundry, cleared off a large portion of the couch (known today mostly as yarn/library books storage), re-did my tote bag, re-stocked my knitting essentials case, and... oh, hey, yeah! Wrote a blog post. :-)

I finished the felted cloche (hat) from Felt It!, which is to say that I've knit it, not that I've felted it yet. I got some great ideas for taking photos of it tomorrow, so I'll do that, weather permitting. (More on this weather thing in a second.) This project was a bit of a revelation to me, not in construction or process, but in equipment. I tend to take for granted that I have most of what I need for any given project. I don't own every circular needle possible, but I do have a set of Denise Interchangeable Needles. They aren't my very favorite needles, but they aren't in most ways, bad either and they free me from a lot of running-out-to-get-needles and have, as such, probably saved me more money than I would care to think about. So I'm covered on circs and have many a straight needle, but the dpns. Oh the dpns.

I sort of naturally figured that since I own a 16" size 11 circular needle I'd made a hat at some point, and would therefore have size 11 dpns... somewhere. Nope. I checked everywhere. The jars that hold the needles that I don't really want anymore, the boxes that hold my active/favorite needles, even in the project stash in case they were there somewhere. It turns out that I am not near as well equipped a knitter as I'd thought.

So here we are now at 1:48 and as I've been bustling around doing... stuff, I been watching the sky become progressively less clear. I assumed that this was an inversion based fog rolling in, but as I look at the streetlights I'm now realizing that that's not fog, it's snow. Gently falling, but still rather substantial snow.  So I end this blog post with wishes for safe driving and clear roads to all, and to all a good night.