The Knitting Pirate

Yesterday was gray and drizzly, and I didn’t accomplish much in the way of knitting. I did catch up with friends for a bit, and had a lovely dinner with Pirate-Husband of chicken, sweet potato, and acorn squash over couscous… but no knitting! This morning was black and rainy, my commute took twenty minutes longer than it should, and I’m a little grumpy about it. In order to make myself feel better, I’m looking at my stash on Ravelry.

(I also ordered a three-pack of Malbec from wine.woot to make myself feel better, but that’s not as closely related to yarn and fiber… though it’s just as relaxing!)

So anyway, my stash. It’s so soothing to look at it, even in pictures, even without the tactile pleasures. I can imagine what I’ll knit or spin, I can envision the excitement of casting on and the accomplishment of binding off, the curiosity to see how dyed top will spin up and the milestones of filling a bobbin, plying, washing, and parading the finished yarn around the house.

I’m starting to plan out my 2009 fiber arts. Mom’s gloves should be done in two weeks (I’m being realistic; I can knit a glove in a week but my hands will hate me for it) and my socks should hopefully be finished in the next few weeks after that. Maybe I can get both of those projects done before the New Year!

Two fairly complex projects need to be worked on. The first is the Pomatomus socks; I have no excuse for not having those complete already. The next is Napramach, a colorwork bag for friend Angie, who has made me some beautiful SCA garb. I have the yarn and am thoroughly intimidated by the pattern.

Two sock designs are percolating in my head. One is the written-up pattern for the with numbers for a smaller size worked out, and a new name of “Brother’s Socks.” The second is the design I started in the sock class I took with Cookie A. back in September, which is much more elaborate. I’m going to name it “Verdant.”

2009 will also be a year for spinning. I can’t justify the purchase of a second wheel until I’m spending more time at the one I have. And I can’t justify the purchase of more top/roving until I’ve spun up some of what I have. The Yarn Harlot says that Tuesdays are for spinning, so perhaps I will take her advice and schedule time that’s specifically for turning fluff into usable yarn. I would really like to have a pair of socks made from my own handspun. I also have a dream of a lace shawl from my own handspun, but I’m not touching those rolags until I’m more confident in my ability to spin smooth, fine yarn.

It’s possible that 2009 will be a year for dyeing. There’s only one room in the house that hasn’t been unpacked and set up yet, and that’s the crafts room. Well, right now it’s a boxes-and-laundry room. The washer and dryer are going to stay right where they are, but there’s no reason that the rest of the room can’t be set up for arts and crafts! I’d like to arrange a fiber station with areas for both carding and dyeing.

Ahh, I’m feeling better already…

Despite my careful attempts to keep track of the beginning of each round, I somehow managed to offset the heel of my not-so-quick sock by four stitches. Guess I’ll be ripping back and fixing that.

Unfortunately, that might not be happening just yet. The heat in the house is underfunctional – it blows air that is warmer than frigid, but yesterday when I got home from work, it was 63 degrees inside and only 29 outside (17 and -2 C, approximately). At that temperature, my fingers are just a tad uncooperative about fine movements. A repairman is scheduled to come out on Wednesday morning.

Last night I had about an hour before bed. I’d worked on Mom’s gloves and on my sock, and thought I’d treat myself to a bit of spinning on my attempt at a three-ply sock yarn. “I’ll finish off the bobbin,” I said to myself, “there’s not much left before I have to go to the next one.”

Well, I sat down at the wheel and started to spin, but something didn’t feel right and worse, something didn’t sound right. It didn’t take much inspection to figure out what it was – the large end of the bobbin, the brake side, had completely come loose from the axle and was spinning freely. I took it off the wheel to look more closely, and sure enough, it was threatening to pop off entirely if I let it go.

Downstairs to Pirate-Husband – “Help! I have a spinning emergency! Can this be glued… with the yarn still on it?” No, of course not, not without the risk of gluing my yarn to the bobbin. I threw it onto the lazy kate, put the brake on the small end of the bobbin, turned the tension way up on the wheel and put the drive band on the smallest whorl, and whipped through winding my singles onto one of the new bobbins that I bought at WEBS in October.

Whew! Crisis averted.

The failed bobbin is one of the wheel’s originals, so I’m not really surprised that the glue failed after twenty-some years. Pirate-Husband has wood glue and clamps that I can use to repair it, and then it should be good as new!

I think I am going to name the wheel “Patience.” Goodness knows I need it in order to spin with her.

One and a half fingers are done on the first of Mom’s gloves. This picture only hints at the depth of color in the yarn. It is absolutely beautiful and a joy to work with. And yet for some reason I find myself procrastinating on the project. I’m pretty sure that’s just my natural tendency to procrastinate on anything with a deadline. The last three gifts I knit were all finished just hours before I had to give them. This time, I resolve to get the gloves done well in advance.

Part of my procrastination on the gloves has been because of these socks. They are so mindlessly simple to work on, now that I’m past the heel, that I keep picking them up. That, and it’s been a while since I finished a pair of socks for myself. These are so cheerful that I’d like to be wearing them mid-winter, to add some bright color back to the world!

Last night at the company dinner I was talking with some guy I didn’t know, one of our company’s associates, and he asked me if I had any hobbies. “I knit,” I said, and to my surprise he answered “Really? So do I!”

We really are everywhere.

I decided to take the easy route and just skip the stripe that had had the knot in it, and now I have a perfect short-row heel. I used this tutorial and plowed through it until it was done. It seems that no matter what kind of heel I’m doing, it’s my least favorite part of the sock. But now I’m past that and on to the leg! It will be stockinette most of the way up, with some k2 p2 ribbing for the last few inches.

Tonight there will be no knitting; I will be attending my company’s Winterholiday Party at La Bergerie in Alexandria. I have been told that the food there is magnificent, and I’m looking forward to it! The only thing I’m not looking forward to is the hour-plus drive it will take to get there.

And tomorrow, I’ll get back to my mom’s gloves. We’ve scheduled a family Chanukah get-together for December 28th, so that is my deadline to have the pair finished.

Because it would be a pain in the butt to try to measure out a length of heel color stripe against another stripe, I think I’m just going to start the entire heel over with the next stripe in sequence. Not only will this be easier than measuring, but it will be easy to reproduce on Sock #2.

Today, I was complimented on the policy I have on the Highwayman Armwarmers pattern: Distribute the pattern freely but don’t sell it. You may sell armwarmers made with this pattern if you give me credit for having designed it. Since I don’t plan to make and sell armwarmers, it’s not taking any money out of my pocket if anyone else wants to do so. Feel free! Have at it! Enjoy!

There I was, knitting the short-row heel on my Quick and Easy Sock, when – a knot! Not just any knot, but one followed by a color change! Not just any color change, but one that was out of sequence! And not only that, but the color sequence reversed afterwards!

I cut the yarn at the knot and re-wound the rest of the yarn so that the stripes would appear in proper order, then went back to knitting the heel. About halfway through it I realized I was going to be off by one or two rows, which would throw off the striping from this sock to the next.

So I figure I have three choices:

a) ignore it and knit on
b) add extra of that stripe to the heel of the second sock
c) rip back and match the yarn lengths up better

Choice A, ignore it, will be the easiest to do now, but the mismatched stripes will annoy me for the life of the socks. So much for choice A.

Choice B will save me some time now, but it will be fiddly later and difficult to get the exact lengths right.

Choice C, on the other hand, will be fiddly now but save me time later, and I think I’d rather save time on the heel of the second sock. By that time I will be ready for the socks to be *done already* and might not have the patience to futz around with getting just the right amount of one particular color into a heel. Besides, it seems like the right thing to do. A mistake is made now; fix it now. Other than the annoyance of having to rip back, it should be pretty easy to get the end of the one with the knot lined up with the end of the –

Oh no. What if the heel stripe wasn’t full-length? What if the knot wasn’t at the end of its color change? Okay, I can do this. I’ll rip back to the beginning of the color change and measure it. But that won’t work if it’s not full length, will it. HA! I will measure it against the length of the next color change! Yeah! Could this BE more fiddly, on something that’s supposed to be a Quick and Easy Sock?

These are two half-ounce samples of hand-dyed roving from Sheepish Creations on Etsy. The rainbowy one on the left is Merino, and the more subtle colored roving on the right is Romney.

I love when fiber artists have samples available! In this case, they were offering the chance to try two different fibers for $3, and they included a coupon for $3 off the next order. Seemed like a great deal to me! I’ve been kinda hesitant to buy a lot of hand-painted fiber from Etsy, because without touching it there’s no way of knowing what it’s like. Is it a little felted? Is it very soft or sort of rough? Does the dye leak out in the rinse water? This is a great chance to try just a little bit and get a feel for it.

Pirate-Husband asked what I could do with half an ounce of fiber, once it’s spun up. I think it would be perfect for a small colorwork motif on a solid background, if I spin a fingering weight yarn.

Here are the completed Bloo Socks. I used Elizabeth Bennett’s Perl Sock Program to start off, but had to make so many changes to it – first the number of stitches I cast on, then the ribbing, then the heel numbers, the decrease type, the toe… Enough changes were made that I feel comfortable writing up what I did as an original pattern. I will call them “Brother’s Socks” and hopefully knit a test sock for myself before releasing the pattern in two sizes. The Bloo version will be the large at 96 stitches, and medium will have 88. Maybe I’ll figure out the numbers for the heel and toe at 80 stitches for a small size as well. It’ll probably be another freebie pattern, as I’m not sure it’s complex enough to charge any money for. What do you think?

This is how far I got in three days of on-and-off knitting on the quick pair of toe-up socks I’m making for myself. It took a couple of tries to remember the trick of doing a figure-eight toe, but once I got all the stitches arranged on the needles it was full speed ahead! I got lots of comments about how fast it was going. That’s the thing about stripy socks, at least for me. I want to knit as fast as I can to see how the stripes will come out! I had expected them to be narrower, but they’re coming out at around five rounds each. When I start the second sock I’ll do my best to start in the same place so they match. These definitely pass my “blue jeans” test for hand-knit socks, but I’m sure I’ll wear them to work under skirts as well.