I haven’t knit much in the past couple of weeks. There always seems to be something else to do, people visiting, places to go.

Half of the blues and greens Falkland is spun into singles that should ply into a striping heavy fingering weight yarn, and I’ve split the other half to be the same. I took a pair of pliers to my spinning wheel to open up the eyehooks just enough to let me switch the brake band around so that it will work better for plying. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before watching the New Voyager video that recommended it – of course a spring-tensioned brake won’t work if the bobbin is turning towards the spring!

My friend for whom I’m making Napramach asked me again about it last night. I haven’t touched it in weeks, but now I’m reminded that I need to get back to it. It takes a lot of concentration and unbroken blocks of time, which seem to be in short supply lately.

I cast on for the second handspun BFL sock, and am through the toe increases and into the foot. It will probably be my Thanksgiving knitting, as it’s stockinette all the way up. That makes it perfect for knitting while talking.

For my birthday, my parents gave me a gift card to an arts & crafts store. This weekend, armed with the card and a 50% off any one item coupon, I went shopping! First I got an Ott-Lite, so I can see what I’m doing even in the dark. I’m hoping that my not-full-sunlight pictures will come out well with this new light source. The one I got clips to a table edge or stands on its own.

Then I picked up a set of crochet hooks, just to have. I do want to learn to crochet, kinda-sorta-maybe, but at the very least, hooks are useful for picking up dropped stitches. I think the two sides of the Napramach bag are supposed to be crocheted together, too. So the hooks will come in handy.

I also picked up nice pair of Fiskars short scissors with an extra-fine tip for snipping yarn, a set of craft acrylic paints for painting designs on the loft supports in my room, and a spray can of matte finish for the Ashford bobbins. Some of them are unfinished, and it’s probably not a good idea to leave them that way for too long.

I’m about 75% of the way through the BFL fiber, and hope to have it done, plied and finished this week. It’s been a while since I’ve picked up any of my knitting projects, and I’m starting to miss them!

I finished knitting the first side of the Napramach bag this afternoon, hooray! The two-color bind-off was not nearly as complicated as I had thought, which was a relief. And while I haven’t mastered the art of knitting with one strand in my left hand and one in my right, I’ve at least gotten to an acceptable skill level with it. I expect the second side to come out better than the first, just by virtue of practice. Unfortunately there’s no obvious front or back to this bag, or I’d be putting this piece in the back. I’m going to start the second side right away, or I know I’ll avoid it for almost as long as I avoided starting the project in the first place. I’m a terrible procrastinator, and I’m working to conquer that trait as it’s something I really don’t like about myself. So, here goes for side two of the bag!

It obviously needs some blocking… and there are just a few ends to weave in. Actually, I don’t think I’m going to weave them in; I think I’m going to tie them to each other. Since the bag will be lined, no one will ever see them. Okay, so I’m not quite half done – I’ve marked the project at 45% complete. I think the knitting will be 90%, the crochet bits 5%, and the lining another 5%. I have no idea what the crochet instructions mean just yet, but I know someone who can help me figure it out (Hi, Sarah!) and I’m eager to learn! There are so many great crochet patterns out there that I’d love to try, mostly amigurumi, but some freeform stuff as well. Aren’t those spiffy?

These are the colors of the Napramach – tan, brown, two shades of blue, red, and gray. (The pattern called for a more silvery-gray than what I have, but that was out of production at the time, so darker gray will have to do.) They go nicely together, the red standing out against the more subdued colors. And they each have a little bit of the others’ colors in them. The red and tan have tweedy bits of blue; they all have tweedy bits of tan. I really like tweed yarns.

And THIS is the most perfect fabric ever. So ugly it’s beautiful, covered in camels, and just the right colors for the bag. It just doesn’t get better than that. She is absolutely going to love this. I ordered two 18″ squares, which should be more than enough. If there’s enough leftovers, I might sew a little drawstring pouch and give her that, too.

For a project that annoyed me so much to have to make (especially when I found out that she thought I was making her something simple like a Booga Bag), that I procrastinated on for approximately two years, I seem to be enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. It definitely helps that it’s going a lot faster than I expected! I’m stretching my skills and rising to meet a challenge, and that’s always a good feeling.

I seem to be getting the hang of this project. Mostly I work with one yarn in my right hand and two in my left, because I’m still not very good at knitting with the yarn in my right hand. Purling is still confounding me. English-style knitting seems like an exercise in wasted motion. I know many people who knit English who are considerably faster than I am (I’m looking at you, Janis) so I know it’s not a bad style… it just seems like a lot of movement! Anyway, the written instructions deviated from the chart yet again, so I’m ignoring them and just following the chart now. It’s knitting, after all, and no one’s going to notice if there’s a fudged bit here or there.

With a little bit of blocking, this will look pretty spectacular. I’m trying to remember to leave nice long floats so that there’s room for the knitting to stretch. Because I’m going to line the bag, I’m not worried about the floats getting snagged on anything. I’d like to find some horrifically gaudy camel print for the lining, since the recipient’s favorite animal is the dromedary.

I feel as though I’ve gone up a level or two in Knitting (ding!) and although I don’t like the way the pattern is written, I do like the way the product is coming out. Except for these decreases in the middle. They all slant properly, but I wonder if a centered double decrease might not look better. Ah well, too late now! I hate thinking “if I knit this again, I would change…” because I really, really can’t imagine myself ever knitting another one of these bags. Of course that jinxes it, and twenty years from now I’ll have a sudden Napramach craving…

Oh, Napramach. What the hell was I thinking when I said I would knit you? I looked at your siblings projects on Ravelry, and no one had a kind word to say about your pattern. I might have been deterred by “not for the faint of heart,” but no. I am stubborn, and I will conquer you. One row at a time, one stitch at a time, I will persevere. And I will win.

It’s a good thing that Rowan Felted Tweed holds up to repeated frogging.

This is as far as I got with the Kureyon sock on the airplane. I love watching the stripes emerge, the subtle shifts of colors that lead to new interplays. Figuring out how to carry the unused yarn up five rounds without having it show through is interesting. I’m not sure I’m doing it right; the floats are longer than I’d like, but so far nothing peeks through. So far, I really like this yarn. Except for the knot, but I was kind of expecting that. It’s certainly not as soft or squooshy as, say, Dream in Color’s “Smooshy”, but it’s not as rough as sandpaper, like some people have said. And while there are some underspun places, I haven’t had trouble with the yarn drifting apart.

So this is what happened with Napramach: the first row in the chart has two stitches and doesn’t say anything about increases. The second row in the chart has four stitches. Figuring that meant I’d have four at the end of the row after I did the increases, I bravely knit on… and when I got to the colorwork, I was short by two stitches. I ripped back to the beginning and did an increase in the first row, so that I’d have the proper four in the second… and when I got to the end, I had an extra two stitches. So I just skipped the increase in the last row, and I’m sure no one will ever know the difference. I plan to line the bag with something gaudy, preferably a camel print. Riya will absolutely love it.

My trip to Canada was excellent, partly because of the Fleep-Tops (Warm enough, only because it was relatively warm there. I rate them as good for 35-45F.) but mostly because I was with some of my best friends. We ate stew, we drank beer, we played Munchkin. I knit some, too – I cast on for a sock in Noro Kureyon while in the airport waiting for my flight.

My ball of yarn weighed light at only 84g, which is probably because it’s so ridiculously dry up here, and there was a knot at the 39g mark with a color change. So now I have one 39g and one 45g ball, and I decided to start with the smaller. I’m working toe-up to get the most out of the yarn, and striping every five rounds because there’s no way I’d be able to get the color transitions to line up properly. Striping makes a non-matching pair of socks into a matching pair! (I know, I said I was going to knit Thermal Socks, but I changed my mind.)

Now that I’m home, I’ve cast on for Napramach. This is the most complicated thing I’ve ever tried. I’m eight rows in and stymied – how do I not have the right number of stitches? The chart makes no sense to me. I’ve posted for help on Ravelry, and hopefully will get an answer soon.

When I saw my mother-in-law last weekend, she gave me this bag as an early birthday present. My birthday’s in January, but I’m not going to see her again before then. “Oooh!” I may have squeaked. “A knitting bag!”

She looked confused. “It’s not a knitting bag,” she told me, “it’s a purse. It has a glasses case–”

“I can put stitch markers in there!”

“–and a little cosmetics bag–”

“For my ruler and some bigger notions!”

Eventually we agreed that while it hadn’t been sold as a knitting bag, it’s going to be one now. It’s not exactly what I’d carry for an everyday purse, but as something to carry yarn and medium-sized works in progress, it’s perfect! In fact, this may be the best gift she’s ever gotten me.

One year she bought me a cape. I kid you not.

I spoke to Pirate-Husband, and he said that his cousin is unlikely to want a sweater that’s hand-wash-only, not to mention that I shouldn’t feel obligated to knit for her in the first place. As much as she would love and appreciate the sweater, she’d also throw it in the wash.

So I’m nixing the idea of the Baby Surprise Jacket. I’m okay with this decision; I’ve got two more gift knits at the top of my queue – one a quick six-hour project of a Swiffer mop cover, the other a much more complicated colorwork bag – but after that, it’s purely knitting for me, me, me! I hate to sound selfish, but most of my knitting lately has been for other people, and it’s been starting to drag on me. I don’t like working to deadlines and I don’t like feeling as if other people are anxiously awaiting my work.

Tonight I’m putting the thumb onto the first of Mom’s gloves and if there’s time, I’ll cast on for the second. I’ve made a lot of plans to go places and do things in the next few weeks, and so my schedule for these has been pushed up. I need to hurry.

In administrativia, I’ve made a change to the blog feed, by request – now the whole entry should be showing to anyone who reads via RSS. I hope this is a positive change for everyone!

Lately I have been spending more time on Ravelry than actually knitting. This is because I have internet access from work, but I can’t sit at my desk and knit. Yesterday I re-organized my stash by breaking apart an entry that included several colorways of the same yarn, and re-listing them separately by colorway. Today I did some queue re-arranging. For those of you without Ravelry accounts, you poor things you, the next few projects include plain brown socks for Pirate-Husband, Clessidra socks for myself, and a Napramach bag (here’s a picture of someone else’s) for a gift.

I do plan to finish the four projects I have on the needles first, of course.

Then I’d also like to do some work on the progress bars that appear in the right column. There’s lots of help available and some wonderful examples of what can be done. I just haven’t had the time to work on them yet.

Tonight I’m going to SnB for the first time in a while. I’m meeting another knitter who also recently moved to Haymarket, and I’m quite excited to be seeing everyone again! It’ll also be nice to get some work done on the Garter Rib Sock. I’ve not touched it since I started the Baby Surprise Jacket, which has taken priority for knitting at home. The Sock-in-Progress, whatever it is, is always my traveling project.

There’s been so much going on lately that it’s keeping me from making significant progress on any of the knitting or spinning projects. I did get a lazy kate but I haven’t even taken it out of the box yet. Now that the bedroom is finished (with paint, if not with furniture) I think I’m going to haul the spinning wheel up there. It will make the room seem less empty, and I’m much more likely to spin if it’s upstairs, rather than hiding in the basement!

I was reminded recently that I’d promised to knit a bag for my friend Riya, who made me the most gorgeous dress I’ve ever owned. It’s gold velvet and brocade, and I need the help of two people to get dressed, and it requires a hoop-skirt underneath it to look right. I wore it last Pennsic to the Hoity-Toity Party at Casa Bardicci, and I have never had so much fun at that party because always before I felt under-dressed. Anyway, I said to myself that I would knit a bag for Riya. I even told her that I was going to do it, because that way I’d be held to my statement. I picked out the bag (shh, it’s a secret as to which one), bought the pattern, and tried to find the yarn at one of the LYSs here. No luck!

Well, Friday night I talked to Riya on the phone and that reminded me of this bag, and I said to myself, “Self, you’re going to have to order the yarn online or you’re never going to get it,” so I went to WEBS and ordered it. I was a few cents short of the cutoff for the 20% discount, so I ordered some sock yarn with Pirate-Husband in mind, which saved me almost $14, or just the price of a ball of Trekking XXL… I consider this to be a free ball of Trekking, and let no one say that I could have saved $14, because I already know.

Today I spent some time with Pirate-Mom, who was putting the finishing touches on a lace-ish cardigan for her granddaughter/my nieceling. “You really oughta knit something for yourself some time,” I said, and she agreed – she wants to knit a lace stole to wear at fancy events. She’s always getting dressed up and going somewhere. So she inspected my Ostrich Plumes Scarf, and decided she really liked that stitch pattern. We checked out some yarn online and she ended up ordering three hanks of Alpaca Cloud in “Smoke Heather” from KnitPicks. It’s inexpensive enough, she says, that if she doesn’t like it, she won’t feel bad (and she’s sure I would volunteer to buy it from her).

After some trial and tribulation with the postal service losing the package, they finally found and delivered it to me. The latest additions to the library are Folk Bags by Vicki Square, and Richard Rutt’s “A History of Hand Knitting”, which should be helpful if I ever want to do any documentable knitting for the WEBS in June.

I’ve also ordered two FiberTrends patterns, both lace washcloth/soap sack sets. “Bathing Beauties” and “Bathtime Blossoms” will make wonderful Christmas gifts for my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law, who seem to like such things. It seems like a quick and easy way for me to get into knitting lace – or is that lace knitting?

Once I get the hang of it, I have some beautiful coppery-brown silk and cashmere laceweight yarn that will one day be a beautiful coppery-brown silk and cashmere lace scarf. I’m almost scared to touch it; it’s so beautiful in the ball. I admit, sometimes I take it out of the yarn basket just to pet and admire it for a minute or two.

Pirate-Husband says that if I really want to knit lace, I can knit cuffs for all his SCA shirts. When I pointed out that knitted lace isn’t documentable for his time period (mid-1500s), he counter-pointed out that neither is the machine-produced stuff he has sewn to his shirts now. I looked briefly at bobbin lace, which *is* documentable to the mid-1500s, but decided that there was too much fine thread there for me to enjoy playing with it as much as I enjoy knitting with yarn. So he’s going to get knitted lace, if he gets any lace at all. I’m sure he won’t complain.