The Knitting Pirate

Just what I needed, eh? Here are colorways 178 (left) and 215 (right), which will keep the Stripey Striped Scarf from being too short. Woolwinders didn’t have more of either of my first two colorways; not too surprising with Kureyon. So I picked two others that I thought went together well, and would match with what I had. Another woman in the store commented about Kureyon’s colorways; I forget what she said exactly, but it was like, “that’s nice.. that’s nice.. what the hell is this color doing here? ahh, that’s nice again.”

At first I thought of putting the two new colorways together in the middle of the scarf and having the ends match. Then I realized there is no matching. Each ball starts in a different place in the colorway, and who knows how things would line up? I was also a little concerned that there would be a really obvious break where I changed colors. So here’s what I’m going to do: The new 215 will be paired with the old 148 for the middle of the scarf, and then the new 178 will be paired with the old 185. This way each duller color is paired with a brighter, and no two colorways go together twice. Maybe I’m overthinking this just a little! I’m sure it will look perfectly fine – and perfectly hideous – no matter which way the yarn goes. And by hideous, I mean fantastic. This thing is just too cool!

I have half a pound, or eight ounces, of roving. It is dyed in five different colors. I’ve spun a few yards and plied them together, but because of the five different colors, it’s kinda muddy-looking. I’m thinking that when I spin this up for real and not just for experimentation, I should split the roving by color first, and try to do some kind of graduated something or other. At least I could get the orange free. Ooh, maybe one ply of orange and one of the rest of the colors? I don’t know if that would look well at all. Though it will take some time to separate, and I’m sure I’d get some of one color into another, I think in the long run I’ll be glad for it.

I think next time I do this, I’m going to buy separate colors, not roving that’s dyed in stripes. Live and learn, live and learn. Also, there was some talk at Wednesday’s SnB about a local spinning class/group/something that meets on Sundays. That could be useful!

The Stripey Striped Scarf has gotten to the end of the first two balls (or very close to it, anyway) and is ten inches short of what it would need in order to end up as long as I want it to be, which is more than six feet. So it’s on hold until I can go buy two more balls of Kureyon. I never thought purple and orange would look this good next to each other, but there it is, looking good.

Now, I do have two balls left, one each of 147 and 158. But if my LYS doesn’t have those two colorways, then I want the odd two to be in the middle of the scarf, and the ends will match. Maybe. My thought is 147/158 – x/y – 147/158 again might look kinda neat. The only thing that worries me is the sudden color change instead of the nice gradual one, but that would happen anyway if the skeins don’t begin at the same point in the colorway, right? I’m not going to waste perfectly good yarn to make the colors line up, not in this case. It’s supposed to be garish, after all.

So the scarf is waiting, just in case I find different colorways of Kureyon that I like. Too bad; it’s a great sit-in-front-of-the-computer-and-knit project. I guess I’ll just have to work on some lace.

Oh, and although I wasn’t going to, there were several requests at the SnB for a picture of my niece. Here she is at about four hours old – it will be a while before she fits into those pants, I can tell you, and even longer before I can start to teach her to knit. All in good time, little girl, all in good time. Muahahaha!

I only got a few rounds past the point at which this picture was taken when my hands started seriously complaining about two straight hours of sock knitting. That being said, tonight’s SnB was fun as usual! We had about fifteen people at the most crowded. Some crocheters and some needlepointers, but mostly knitters. I really enjoy talking to everyone, and showing the sock around. I demonstrated Continental knitting (“that looks weird, doesn’t it?”) and talked up the ease of flap heels to someone who’s just getting into the idea of socks. Also, I came home with a bonus copy of “Knit ‘N Style” magazine. I may not knit anything from it, but I love looking at the pictures and seeing what crazy ideas people come up with!

The other cool thing about the SnB, I may have mentioned, is that we’re working together on a charity blanket. I got the yarn for my four squares today, as well as the one border square that Pirate-Husband agreed to knit. My size 6 needles are free, so I can get started on my squares right away. Pirate-Husband is away on business… but when he gets back, I’m putting him to work!

Now, because the subtitle of the blog is “A Knitter and Her Day Job,” I feel that it is very important for me to share this next bit of news: I have joined the ranks of the re-employed. Yes, my days of bumming around are over as of July 9th. I had an interview yesterday and one today – and both places made offers. I took the one from yesterday. The commute is going to be rough, but I plan to get books and French lessons on CD to help me pass the time in the car. I am very excited about this; I think it’s blah blah great opportunity blah blah buzzword drone drone… the important thing is, I wasn’t out of work for very long and I haven’t forgotten how. I’m eager. Just think of all the yarn I can buy, now that I’ll have income again! Mmmm, celebratory yarn…

The Stripey Striped Scarf is coming right along. I’m almost at the end of the first two balls of yarn, and I’m noticing that the 1×1 ribbing takes up a lot more yarn that I thought it would, and uh… I may need to pick up another two balls of yarn. I’m going to wait until the first two balls are really finished, and measure, and imagine another few inches for blocking. But I really like long scarves, 6′ at least, and this just isn’t going to make it. No way.

On the other hand, I like how the colors look a lot better now. So what if there’s a bit of green and red and bright yellow next to each other? So what, purple and orange vibrate together? There’s a good bit of pleasant purple on purple and green on purple and light green on dark green. And and and. I love color; it’s one of my main reasons for knitting. Not to mention the textures. And, oh yeah, the functional useful product. And, oh yeah, it’s fun, too.

Anyway, I think I might stop at the yarn store this coming weekend and just check what colors of Kureyon they have in stock. You know, just to check. Can’t have a short scarf, now can I?

Pictures were taken. The pattern was revised. A last-minute gauge swatch was knit, just to be sure. The email was sent – my pattern has just been sent off to Knitty.

For some reason, this process reminded me of writing English papers. Teachers always wanted us to take notes on index cards, from which we would write an outline, then compose the paper from the outline. I never worked like that; I always just wrote the paper, then (since I needed to hand in an outline for full credit) worked backwards to the index cards.

With this particular pattern, I mucked around with it until it fit, knit it, had the Ninja test knit it too, re-wrote the pattern, knit it again for myself, revised the pattern again… and then knit a test swatch about fifteen minutes before submitting the thing to Knitty. Crazy, eh?

Speaking of crazy, I chose not to go to WEBS this weekend. I know, I know, it’s heresy – but I had a choice. Either we could drive 80 mph on the highways from Ottawa to Northampton and I could spend half an hour in the store, or we could drive much slower down much more scenic routes, and I could do touristy things like boat tours, unexpectedly excellent restaurants in small towns, and rainbows after thunderstorms. I chose the touristy things… and I’m owed a trip to the yarn store. Besides, (she told herself, not quite convincingly) I have so much yarn right now. Enough to keep me busy for a good long while. I don’t need to buy more. Really. And I did go to two yarn stores in Ottawa. One had the right yarn in the wrong color, and one was having a 50% off going-out-of-business sale but had nothing I wanted to buy, even at half-price.

Anyway, I was nervous before I submitted the pattern, and now I’m strangely calm. Either they will like it or they don’t. My hope is, of course, that they do like it, and that lots of people will come read my blog as a result, and that I’ll design more patterns in the future and sell them for a few dollars each and make some pocket change with which I can buy myself lunch every so often! Yeah!

The Stripey Striped Scarf is about a foot long already, and I’m much more pleased now with the way the colors are playing out against each other. Teal and mustard yellow don’t go together so well, but dark and light purple ain’t so bad next to each other, and the colors change frequently enough that if there’s one stripe I don’t like in a six-foot scarf, oh well! I would take pictures, but my camera is already packed for my trip to Ottawa. (Pirate-Husband is holding down the fort; I’ll be back Tuesday night.)

Saturday is Knit in Public Day, and I will definitely be in public, knitting. The Ninja and Iare talking about going to WestFest and knitting there, probably near the Spins and Needles booth.

Famous last words: “This ball of Kureyon has a lot less straw in it than usual!”

Ravelry.com, while still very obviously in beta, looks like it’s going to grow into a very freakin’ cool community. I spent a few hours inputting my stash and project queue, uploading pictures to my new Flickr account, rating yarns, checking out patterns and pictures… I haven’t delved into the forums yet, but wow. There is so much there already, and it’s only just begun!

One thing which really draws me to the site is the upcoming feature of being able to automate sales of patterns. Paypal, emailed .pdf files, instant transaction. It’s a beautiful idea, and not having to handle the shopping cart and emailing stuff myself is quite appealing.

No word on when the site is going to open to the public, but you can sign up to be a beta tester. There’s no confirmation of your request, and it will take a while for your request to be processed; they’ve had more than 5500 requests already and are adding users in batches. Trust me though, it’s worth the wait! I’m really hoping the site takes off like mad, and I’m so glad to be a part of the beta testing team.

I ordered these shoes last week from a store in the mall, and I am so thrilled that they fit! They are just perfect for showing off handknit socks (shown – last year’s toe-up Plain Old Socks, Regia Canadian Colour 4743). They are also suitable for wearing to an office, when I find a job. Too cool.

This Stripy Striped Scarf alternates two colors of Noro Kureyon (147 and 158) in a 1×1 rib over 49 stitches on size 8 needles. I like to have a project going that doesn’t require a lot of concentration. I can take it to the Stitch ‘n Bitch, or watch TV, or have a conversation while I’m working. From this blog entry at BrooklynTweed I got the idea of slipping the first and last stitches on every second row to make a nice neat edge. It’s working quite well! One thing that had really frustrated me when I was working on the So-Called Scarf is that when I was alternating between balls of yarn (in that case, to keep from wild color changes between skeins), the yarn that was carried up the side didn’t look right. Slipping the first and last stitches on the second rows keeps everything tightly together, which looks a lot better to me.

The traveling sock traveled up to Pennsylvania this weekend to visit family, and began looking stripy too. I like the reactions that I get from different people when they see me working on a sock. It’s everything from “How long does it take you to knit a pair of socks?” to “Wow, I’d never have the patience to do something like that – but I do like counted cross-stitch,” to “How hard is that to learn? I need a new hobby.” Since I’m back home, the traveling sock has been returned to its resting place, awaiting Thursday’s airplane ride.

I got my Ravelry invite today, and as a result had to set up a Flickr account. There probably won’t be much there that isn’t here anyway, but feel free to check it out! Ravelry looks like it’s going to be a very cool community. When the site goes live, I hope there’s a personal page for me to link to.