The Knitting Pirate

Not a single stitch. I was having too much fun visiting family, eating a ridiculous amount of food, joining good conversations, and, well, having no need to hide in a corner with yarn.

However, I did discover that my cousin Sara knits, and we had a good laugh over our matching Stripey Striped Scarves. Seems that we used at least two of the same colorways, which is pretty funny. I got to show off the Fleep-Tops, too, because it was cold enough to require gloves at night.

But now that I’m home, and I have the whole day ahead of me to spend as I wish, I think I will spend at least some of it with yarn.

Although yesterday was Wednesday, and therefore not necessarily a Spinning Day, I couldn’t keep my hands off the new spindle. I’m starting to get the hang of getting it going at high speeds without introducing a wobble, and for the most part I’m drafting while the spindle is still spinning. If the yarn breaks, I have to do a park-and-rejoin sort of trick.

Today, however, I must get back to knitting. My plan is to first get through the heel of the second Toe-Up sock, so that the project becomes portable again. After that, I’ll put fingers onto the Fleep-Tops. I should be able to finish both the gloves and the socks before Winterlude. Not only does that mean I’ll have a new pair of warm wool socks to wear in the winter cold, it means that I’ll be casting on a new project with which to travel!

Actually, there’s a distinct probability that I’ll be casting on two new projects. Part of my travels are by air, which calls for a sock – small, portable, fits in my usual purse – and part will be a road trip, which calls for something bigger than a sock, because I can only knit on a sock for about an hour in the car before getting a headache.

It took an unsurprisingly long time to decide what socks I’d be working on. First I thought I would do another pair of toe-up stockinette socks. After all, I can practically knit those in my sleep! Then I thought no, I want to do something with a little more patterning to it. Nothing too complex, so I could still work on it and talk at the same time. Finally I settled on the Thermal Socks, which use the stitch pattern from the Thermal Sweater from Knitty. I’m going to use Noro Kureyon Sock yarn for them, but I still haven’t decided if I’ll work them top-down or toe-up. Given Kureyon’s propensity for knots, I will definitely be re-winding the yarn into two even portions before I begin.

For the bigger project, I am considering this Wavy Razor Shell Scarf in Noro Silk Garden. I have three skeins of it in beautiful soft blues, grays and purples. The only change I plan to make is that I will knit the scarf with five points, not four, because I agree with Grumperina that four is just not a good number. I don’t know why odd numbers of points look better to me. Anyway, I will be re-winding this yarn into balls as well, not only to check for knots, but because the scarf is knit in two parts, from the middle out. Two of the balls I have are from one dye lot, and the third is from another. I’ll start the middle of the scarf in the middle of that third ball of yarn, and no one will ever know!

The trip to WEBS yielded these additions to the stash, and I think my new camera did them justice. The rocks in my front yard are great to take pictures on when it’s sunny out.

One ball of Lang Jawoll Color Aktion should be more than enough to make fingerless flip-top mittens with nice long cuffs, which I’ve been wanting for a long time. Mittens will keep my hands warmer, but there are those moments when I’ll really need my fingers free. I doubt these will be done by Winterlude, even if that’s when I’ll really need them. There’s a stew competition I attend every year which is held outdoors, and the bulky winter gloves I was wearing last year made it impossible to hold my spoon! The fliptops will also be good for driving, although I do plan to buy a new pair of lined leather gloves this year. My old ones are worn out, and leather is one of those things that knitting just can’t replace.

I’ve wanted to try Silk Garden for a while, and when I saw Everyday Autumn’s Razor Shell Scarf I knew I’d found the right pattern. I have three balls of the Silk Garden and she only used two for a scarf that’s just about five feet. I might decide to make mine a five-pointed scarf instead of three, because I like scarves that are both long and wide. My general rule is that a scarf should be at least six inches taller than its wearer. I’m planning this one for next winter, as I’m not feeling any shortage of scarves; I’ve already knit three for myself! The Razor Shell scarf seems like it might be a little more dressy than the ones I made before. Sometimes I need to look a little more sharp – what’s better than a Razor scarf to accomplish that?

Last night I went to SnB for the first time in six months. It was so good to see everyone again! I’d like to try to get back there more often, if possible. The timing and location aren’t so great for me, but I love being surrounded by two dozen awesome knitters. I got one pattern repeat done on the baby blanket while I was there, which is half of what I’d hoped to accomplish. The pattern row wasn’t too hard to do even with all the conversation and distraction, which pleased me.

I gave some thought to the sock design I’d like to make up, and I think the lace pattern I originally had in mind might not work. The pattern is a multiple of 24 stitches plus one, which would mean having it repeat three times around the sock. How would that work over the instep? I’ll swatch for it just in case, but it might not be the best of ideas, so I’ll go to the design class armed with a couple of different stitch patterns.

Pirate-Husband continues to be awesome. I took out the yarn that I’m going to use in the sock design class, and was fussing with the scale and ball-winder. “What are you doing?” he asked. When I told him that I was splitting the skein in two and winding it up, his first response was “But the class isn’t for three weeks! Should you be winding the yarn up now? It isn’t good to have it under tension.” I love that he knows these things about my hobby and that he’s so supportive, but I reassured him that three weeks of being wound up wouldn’t make much of a difference to the yarn.

The first Bloo Sock is almost complete. I hope to get it done tonight so that Michael can try it on this weekend. I am a little anxious for it to fit well, so I can knit the second sock without worrying that I’m just going to have to rip it all out and start over. Anyway, I’m meeting up with him in Philadelphia to do touristy things and drink beer. The women at SnB last night were recommending Philly yarn stores to me. I may try to resist, as I’m still supposedly on a yarn diet!

I feel like such a dork saying it, but omg! people are making the armwarmers! I saw someone on the LJ knitting community recommending them, and someone on a UK knitting forum did the same, and someone on Ravelry has cast on for the pattern too! I should probably relax a little bit, but I can’t help squeeing just a little!

It’s still not cool enough to wear the Stripey Striped Scarf, but I’m sure it will be soon! I’ll try to get some pictures of its public debut, possibly under the trees which are just now starting to turn pretty colors.

My wrists have been hurting, so I’ve been trying to knit and type a little less. This is frustrating, but I’d rather take a few days off knitting than have to take a month off after I really overdo it.

And lastly, I know this isn’t exactly knitting-related, but in about ten minutes the realtor is going to pick us up and take us to see our first bunch of houses. I’m *so* excited!

Last night I finally finished the Stripey Striped Scarf! I could have kept going; there are three smallish balls of Kureyon left over. I might make a Stripey Striped Hat of them, but the scarf was definitely long enough. I didn’t measure – it’s well over six feet, quite a bit taller than me! I tried to get good pictures:

Here we have the by-now-infamous stripey striped scarf, hurtling towards completion. I may have already mentioned that there’s 12-15 inches of scarf left to knit. It was up in the 90s yesterday (that’s ‘hot’, for you Canadians) so it’s nowhere near time to be wearing warm wool scarves… still, I’m looking forward to having it done. At the same time, I will miss the fun of seeing what colors come next and how they play out against each other. Maybe I’ll have to do something stripy again soon.

As my wrists allow, I’ve been working on carding the green roving. I thought it would never end, but I finished off the last of it after taking this picture. Pirate-Husband helped some, which surprised me a little, but he said he found it to be relaxing and meditative. Maybe I can get him to card for me in the future? I took a cardboard box, lined it with a black plastic bag, and put all the rolags in it. It’s full to the top, so it’s a good thing I’m out of wool that needs to be carded! Next up is, of course, the Eight Pounds of Alpaca – but I think I’m going to hold off on carding that until I’ve spun some of what I’ve already got. First, the roving from MD Sheep & Wool. I think that would be the best to practice on. Then, the green stuff… and THEN the alpaca.

There in the sidebar, thanks to Casey over at Ravelry, is now a neat little thingie (yes, that’s a technical term, ‘thingie’) which shows my current WIPs and their progress. It also links back to the project page on Ravelry, but unless you have an account, you won’t be able to see that yet.

I gotta say, even though the site is still in beta, I’m absolutely loving it. There’s an incredible feel of community over there. Eleven people have queued up the armwarmers pattern. It’s so cool that I’m able to see that! I can’t wait for people to start knitting it so I can see the different projects.

Last night, between re-installing my printer (don’t ask) and poking at the html and css on the blog, I put another few inches onto the Stripey Striped Scarf. It’s got about another 12 or 15 inches, and then it will be DONE! I’m sure I can get quite a bit of it done at SnB tomorrow night. And then… then I can start something new again! Whee!

It is too dark now to take pictures and have any color accuracy, so you’re just going to have to take my word for it…

I wound up the next (fifth) ball, the one with the beginning that closely matches the end of the knotted (third) ball. The outside, which is now the end, is nicely purple. While I had the ball-winder going, and since I’m so close to needing it anyway, I wound up the last (sixth) ball. Amazingly, its beginning end also matches the end of the knotted (third) ball!

The nicely purple end of the fifth ball goes fairly well with the nicely purple end of the fourth ball… so I’m going to re-wind the fifth ball so that the purple end is now the purple beginning. I can’t believe how well this is working out, considering how randomly I picked these balls of yarn!

I proofread this before posting to make sure I had all the balls of yarn right. Hopefully it’s not too confusing, and you can follow along. I’ll try to get color-accurate pictures when there’s some daylight!

Here we see the Stripey Striped Scarf, moving past the salmon and sugar snap peas into the blue of night and the pale grass of morning. I am loving this scarf. It’s mindless knitting. It’s going to look so good when it’s done. It’s… what’s this? What the heck has happened to my yarn? There is a knot. In my Kureyon (third ball). What happened to my slow gradual color change? This goes “green green green KNOT pink pink”! That’s not right at all! Augh! What to do? I briefly consider that I have about two feet of green before the knot; I can untie it and gradually felt the pink in. That will mimic the color shift, right? Of course. No panicking. I get ready to felt.

Then I realize that the next (fifth) ball might have a matching section. I pull it out of the basket and stare. The shade of green just before the knot in the first (third) ball is so very close to the shade of green which begins the next (fifth) ball, though they are totally different colorways. This is just too cool! The scarf is already almost 45″ long, and the next two balls (fifth and sixth) plus the as-yet un-knotted bit of the fourth ball should bring it well up over 72″ unblocked (or, IMO, the perfect length for a scarf). I’m not going to worry about the non-matching end of the third ball of yarn. After all, it had one knot – how can I trust the rest of it?

Color shifting saved, I am going to go wind up the next (fifth) ball of yarn. This is just awesome.