we are bound by symmetry

It's done, it's done, it's done! Here, have some photographic evidence:

That is Henry, blocking away on our sunroom couch. Done! I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to be done with this: the finished product is great, but the knitting was very boring, very fussy - and did I mention boring? The bind-off ALONE took 3+ hours, which I'm really trying not to think about. But it's done (finally!) and Ben will be able to wear it at least a few times this winter, which pleases me immensely - I really hadn't thought I'd get done with this sucker until June. Done!

Pattern: Henry, by Mareike Sattler in Knitty.com

Yarn: Aussie Sock in Oak Moss, about 1.5 skeins

Needles: Size 3 / 3.25 mm for the body and size 2 / 2.75 mm for the first and last three rows.

Modifications: Only that I did 6 of the 7 pattern repeats, mostly for my own sanity. If I were ever to knit this again (which appears very unlikely), I would probably see if I couldn't get away with less freakishly time-consuming set-up and bind-off rows. I don't think the edges look that great, especially considering how annoying the bind-off is. Also, I'm not in love with the little weird ridge at the ends of the scarf, but it's fine.

Done!

title from "Red Right Ankle," The Decemberists

Thousands of words, thousands of yards....

This past week has been pleasantly busy - I have about a thousand words of my research project manuscript (and another thousand words for the IRB), I've been working on several knitting projects and I had some quality reading time. I'll update my book log later this week, probably, but I did want to get some new knitting pictures up here!

So, after much talking about it, I purchased some yarn for Henry and cast on!



The yarn is Aussi Sock in Oak Moss (complete with cute koala picture!) from Susan Yarn up on South Taylor. I've knitted 6 rows of the pattern, plus the cast-on. (Which I loved, by the way, and will totally use again when the time is right. It makes a little picot edge with no sewing required - there is no bad there.) I've already picked out the waste yarn, because it was annoying me endlessly, and a word of advice for anyone knitting this: use a waste yarn that doesn't split. Like, at all. Ever. There was some cursing involved in picking it out.


The abandoned sock re-discovered last week has been proceeding apace - I finished it off and have a few inches of its mate. You'll notice the heel is kind of weirdly puckered - this was, apparently, one of the socks I knit before I learned how to properly pick up the gusset stitches, which may be why I left it to comtemplate its flaws in solitude. My tension is also completely off from Sock #1 to Sock #2 but I'm just going to roll with it. If I never wear them, at least I'm getting back in the sock-knitting mood after never wanting to knit a sock again after the Medrith's Little Lace episode. (A 20 row chart! What was I thinking?)

I also had a very exciting yarn find today, but I'm going to wait until I can photograph it properly before I post about it. I will say this: there were $15 spent, and I am now in possession of a couple thousand more yards of fingering weight wool than I was this morning.

Friday Odds and Ends

I've deviated a bit from the knitting news in the last few posts, mostly because there's nothing that exciting going on. The Seafoam Stitch scarf proceeds, and I've almost finished the second skein - I think I'll knit 2.5 skeins worth, and then add a substantial fringe to it. (Ben and I are rewatching Season 4 of the West Wing, and this has been very good for my knitting productivity.) I'm contemplating mixing fibers on the fringe - maybe adding some silk embroidery floss (not divided) in different shades of pink, or perhaps some beads, but we'll see how ambitious I get.

An idea for a shrug has been percolating for a while, and I think I'm getting close. I liked the construction technique Iris used in her Jellyfish pattern, but knitting it all in one direction like that would drive me crazy, I think. (The pattern on the sleeves wouldn't be symmetric.) So I was thinking of knitting something similar: cast the back on, increase at each end, divide for the bits at the top, then pick up each sleeve from each edge and knit from there. It would still avoid most of the seaming, and the sleeves would match better. I want to use the 50/50 silk/merino blend I bought at the LYS sale a few months ago, but I'm not sure if my 3 balls of worsted weight could be stretched into a shrug. I'm thinking lace on size 12 needles or something.

Oh! Here's a cool news story: a seventh-grade schoolteacher takes pictures in space. For some reason, this really got me thinking about the whole Web 2.0 cultural revolution, which has made it so ordinary for ordinary people to do extraordinary things, like write an encyclopedia or, you know, publish a blog. It still blows my mind sometimes, how incredibly interconnected our knowledge base is becoming. Even with something as admittedly low-tech as knitting: people have been doing this for thousands of years, but now, instead of having to apprentice myself to a knitting guild master, I can read a bunch of blogs and instructions that generous people have shared and teach myself. Of course, launching a weather balloon and taking photographs isn't quite the same thing, but I think the ambition to do so is rooted in the same gestalt that's been building over the last decade: it's no longer exclusively the fashion houses and the publishing companies and the aerospace engineering firms that are setting the trends and furthering the accomplishments of science, it's us. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things. It's a pretty amazing societal change, and I'm glad I've gotten to be around to watch it start.

On a less navel-gazing note, Ben and I are off to the Killers' concert this evening, downtown at the Wolstein Center. I'm looking forward to seeing them perform. I'll also probably do another book log post this weekend. (I made the mistake of starting The Kindness of Strangers last night at 11:30, and I couldn't sleep fall asleep until I finished it. At, oh, about 4:30 this morning.) But I think my pizza dough is ready to be punched down and shaped, so... that's it for now.

Fun over the holiday weekend

The weather here in Cleveland has just been absolutely perfect over this past weekend.... I've found myself going for hour-long walks just to be outside. Ben has been in New York this weekend visiting friends, so I've been rattling around the apartment on my own, but I have managed to have fun. :)

Saturday we went raspberry picking at this great little farm, which was a ton of fun. Karen, being much more on top of things, remembered to bring her camera, so you can check out our massive haul of raspberries and other fun photos of the day here. (Thanks, Karen!) I still have about a quart and a half of berries in the fridge, which will have to be either frozen or turned into something else very soon. I'm actually not that fond of raspberry jam, unfortunately, so... there may be pie in our future.

In knitting news, the scarf grew tremendously last night after I got home from the bar and watched Battlestar Galactica until 2 am. (....what?)


The way this stitch stretches, I think I'm only going to need two skeins, which makes me regret not knitting it wider. Sigh. At least I will definitely be able to add a fringe. However, I think I will eventually buy a cone of silk yarn from Colourmart and make myself a full-size wrap in this stitch. (I'm envisioning something similar to Nereides, but knit with a laceweight mohair yarn held together with the silk. I think I would just want to pet it constantly.) It's not quite mindless knitting, since I have to look at it when I'm dropping the yarnovers, but it's simple, it's knitting up super fast, and I do like how this stitch stretches prettily both vertically and horizontally.

And, oh, I almost forgot! A picture of my birthday presents in action:

I am so unbelievably delighted with how wonderfully this whole ball-winder and swift setup works. I want to wind up all the yarn I own into little yarn cakes, but then I know I will inevitably lose ball-bands and then I will end up with a mess of prettily wound yarn about which I know nothing. So. I will wind yarn as I go, but oh, I'm having lots of fun.

New Project

So I've figured out a use for the impetuously-purchased Debbie Bliss Pure Silk DK weight yarn (it's pink! bright pink!) I acquired a few months ago. (Having limited knitting time and even more limited financial resources available for yarn, I have only just recently started buying yarn without a specific purpose/pattern in mind. By how much fun this experience turned out to be, I think it may become a problem.)

I'm making it into a seafoam stitch scarf, modeled after this version, except with 1, 2 and 3 yarnovers, instead of 2, 3 and 4, which was just far too...loopy. I'm making it 37 stitches across, which is working out to be about 9 or so inches wide. (Needles are 6 mm/US10 bamboo straights, to which I'm returning after a period of circular/dpn monogamy.) I'm hoping this will be wide enough that I can wear it kind-of, sort-of as a stole, and not too bulky to wear as a normal scarf. I'm not in love with it yet, but it's growing on me as I knit it longer and the stitch pattern evens itself out. It's about 10 inches long so far, and I don't think I'm quite halfway through the first of the 3 skeins, so... it appears that I may have enough yarn to knit a decent-length scarf, and (possibly) enough to add some sort of fringe.

I'll add a photo when I'm feeling inspired to hunt down the camera and camera cable.