I'm having a bit of a yarn winding marathon this afternoon. Somehow it seemed like the thing to do while it's so very biblical out there. (Seriously, 40 days and 40 nights is starting to sound like a decent offer, as long as we can be sure to get the sunshine afterwards.) But it's come to a grinding halt, because I can't get my Knitwitches Gossamer Dreams off the winder.

Really.

It's an incredibly fine kid mohair, it made a titchy tiny little cake on the winder... and apparently it's a titchy tiny REALLY TIGHT little cake, because the sucker is staying put. Imagine me doing some kind of knitty version of anchoring my feet to the bottom and yanking with both hands on the top ... no dice.

It's 800m. I don't want to have to wind it all off by hand. Come on. How on earth can a tiny little bit of yarn be giving me such a hard time?!

ETA: Nostepinde to the rescue, but not very efficiently. (An HOUR AND A HALF LATER.) The shape came out astonishingly badly, so I now have a sort of dense, oversized purple cocoon. I suppose it might work perfectly well to knit from, but it's terribly inelegant. I itch to rewind it properly, using a toilet-roll tube inner thingy, but I don't dare. I worry that it will still apply just as much pressure and be so tight even the cardboard tube is stuck. Hm.

Posted by Robynn at 06:01 PM | Permalink | 2 cups of tea on the table

Hey, you know what happened to me yesterday?

I finished some socks!

Two of 'em! At the same time! How cool is THAT?

Pretty darn cool, is how cool.

The geeky bit:
Yarn: Wollmeise's* worsted weight, in Granatapfel. One skein (I just kept knitting till I ran out).
Needles: Destiny rosewood circulars, 40" long, 4mm.
Construction: Toe up magic loop, following these instructions, but taking the numbers from Ann Budd's toe-up sock recipe in the Spring 2007 Interweave Knits.

Now it's just as well that I've finished the socks, because I have some more deadline knitting coming up. Any day now the postie will be bringing me a scrap of shot taffeta from my dear friend Cara's wedding dress, and then I get to hie me to yarn shops in search of some matching mohair, and then I get to make her a shrug. And ideally, I also get to make myself a shrug, because my bridesmaid's dress isn't any warmer than the bride's (although, weirdly, it's far more frou-frou). I think my recent impulse-buy Goldiehair will be perfect for my own shrug/wrap; but for Cara, what?

Distressingly, I think I know what. I think the Silk Rhapsody I'm using for my moebius will be a perfect match for her dress. Oh dear. I do think I spotted some more in the same colourway in Stash, so I'll have to cross fingers it's still there. But how much do I need? Follow my logic here, please, tell me if I'm making sense:
The Crystal Palace yarn called for in the pattern is roughly the same yardage as the Artyarns, but is an awful lot finer. So one is supposed to use double strands; the pattern says to use one strand of print and one solid together, except for the trim, which will be two strands of print.
So. Ignoring the trim (I have other plans entirely), we can estimate that two fine strands x 240m are the same as one strand of chunkier yarn x 240m, when knit at the same gauge. Do you think? So I could just ignore the print yarn and buy as many balls of Silk Rhapsody as I'm supposed to buy of solid-colour Kid Merino - viz, two.

Right?
If you think I'm sailing a little close to the wind, bear in mind I do already have one skein in use on my moebius, and should worst come to worst I could cannibalise that. (Sob.) But still - your thoughts please?

Well. Moving on. I have had some serious postal treats this week. First came my thrillingly naughty looking nostepinde.**

Which is further proof of the dangers of Ravelry. Not Just A Timesucker, its powers of enabling are... beyond imagination. I mean, I have a swift and ball winder. They work all right, even if they are ugly. They're certainly more efficient than hand winding. But they're not maple and walnut, are they?*

I think I need a lot more practice on this thing. The instructions I read (and which I pretty much completely failed to follow, I now notice) mention that the writer developed proficiency in a mere half-hour, after five or six balls. Well. It's probably fair to assume that her balls weren't 525m long.

Knitters, if you're minded to try this newfangled nostewotsit, I strongly recommend checking your yardage before your wrist falls off.****

So that was Monday, and today? Today I got some books.

More Ravelry-assisted enabling to blame here, at least partly. On a discussion about magazines and where to get 'em, someone linked to this magnificent shop, P&M Woolcraft. Not being a spinning/dyeing type person, I expect much of their delightfulness is going right past me, but the books! Oh, the books. What a selection. And magazines! And subscriptions! The prospect of being able to enjoy subscriptions to certain US publications that really don't know how to handle their subscribers... well. It's a treat. And you know what? I've had No Sheep for You and Favorite Socks on preorder from a major bookstore chain for months. Months. They haven't been able to tell me what was happening, so when I saw these titles at P&M I popped them right in the basket. The very next day, would you believe, the bookstore emailed me to say that they couldn't fulfil the order and were cancelling my purchase. Saved me the trouble of doing it myself!

So this morning the books arrived, and it was cold and grey outside and I must admit... I dived right under the duvet and devoured them, every one. What a treat. And no calories, either.

PS. I see my title promises yarn, as well as socks and books. Yeah, I've gotten a little of that too. *blush* I have no self-restraint. But I'm also all photographed out right now. Next time, okay?

_____
* Actually, if you don't already know the Wollmeise, you really shouldn't click on that link. It exerts some sort of hypnotic power. Every time I see that bouncing wool, I get an overpowering urge to go look at the pretty colours (again), and then I really want to buy more yarn... like I need that. (Soon, my pretties. Soon.)
** It's not just me, is it? Have I really inherited my mother's filthy mind?
*** From Hello Yarn. Friendly, helpful, and very speedy.
**** I also recommend encouraging your bridal friends to choose their dress based on what matches the yarn you already have in stash and that gives spectacularly good yardage, rather than the rather pricey and hard-to-get stuff, come to think of it. But that's another issue.

Posted by Robynn at 01:22 PM | Permalink | 3 cups of tea on the table

...I have been:

1. Entertaining relatives. Barely was my mother out the door when my father-in-law and his wife arrived for the weekend. Yesterday we gave them a very personal tour of London, starting with a ferry trip to Greenwich (where the observatory was visited); then heading past the lovely riverside flat we used to share with a friend, stopping for a drink at what was then our local, the oldest riverside pub in London; and from there walking to St Katharine Docks (picking out the yachts we wouldn't mind owning), over Tower Bridge and along the South Bank. This route covers a lot of our favourite places, and is a wonderful way to spend a day.

2. Working. Eh, never mind.

3. Ravelling. Oh! The distraction that is Ravelry! It was bad enough before they started groups. Now, I know it seems mean to go on about Ravelry when maybe some of you are still on the waiting list, but it won't be long;* and just think what you have to look forward to!

If you are on Ravelry, and if you liked Storytellers, please join the new Storytellers group; I would dearly love to see some project pictures showing up as people work on their Cinders Secret Stockings, and so on.

4. Not teknikly instead of blogging, since I read on the train, but: reading The King's Shadow (by Elizabeth Alder) from my lovely book swap pal. Who put a lovely note in the book, giving her name and blog and email and everything, which I promptly lost. And then found... and apparently lost again. Um. Yes. I'm hopeless. I have no doubt that this useful information will show up any minute now - as I wade through the chaos of my in-trays - but meanwhile, I am utterly unable to thank her. So, lovely book pal, if you're reading? Thank you! I didn't mean to ignore you for so long, honest.

The book itself was a treat, but the annotations even more so - insertions of "dun dun dun" at dramatic moments, f'rinstance. And a little binary on the title page (not intended for me), which made me feel dumb, as binary always does. (Nono, please don't start explaining it. I get the theory, I do. I just can't seem to internalise it.) It's a YA historical novel, set around 1066, and I really enjoyed it. (I seem to be on a young adult kick right now, pretty much by accident as these books keep falling into my hands; just before this I read City of Bones, by Cassandra Claire of Very Secret Diaries fame.) The great delight of reading YA fiction, of course, is that they're simply stories - no pretensions at literature - and you can just lose yourself in it. Mahvellous.

Now, back to work...

(PS - thank you so much for all the great comments on Gecko Ridge! I'm much happier with it now, having heard from so many people who like it. Including my lovely husband. It'll be worth dragging to Cape Town, then.)

_____
* Wanna know how long? They've added a nifty page so you can check your position in line (and rescue your invite if it's gotten lost in spam blockers), and are estimating at least 4-5 weeks till the doors open to the public.

Posted by Robynn at 01:31 PM | Permalink

Yup. Done at last. Took me ages to get this sewn up - it's been *nearly* done for weeks and weeks.

[A crochet adaptation of the fabulous Lizard Ridge, for short-row-phobic crafters. For details, see below.*]

As I've said before, this project was a bundle of fun. It was easy, mindless but not boring, perfectly portable, and the colours were delightful.

But I'm not convinced by the finished product.

Partly this is, perhaps, because of not-great finishing. (For reasons including the non-square-ness of my squares; see below.) But at the same time I kinda like the slightly rough finishing. I definitely like the "wrong" side better than the "right" side.

It's also because, in retrospect, I think my colour strategy was poor. That is to say, I didn't have one. I wanted, originally, to have every square a different colourway; but then I got impatient, and got muddled, and also realised that there are a handful of colourways that look almost identical anyway. So keeping them properly separated from each other in the final layout - while still arranging colours in a pleasing flow - was a nightmare.

Other factors that made the layout difficult were the interesting points that, while all made by the same person, using the same hook and the same yarn, the squares were not all the same size. I'm not sure whether the brighter dyes actually worked up to a tighter gauge (it seems that way, and I do remember other projects where dark colours came out much tighter than light in other yarns, but I don't really understand it) or whether perhaps my crochet tension is just all over the place.

So the width varied; and then there's the length issue. My basic "work till you have a square" plan was a little flawed, maybe because of the width issue, maybe not. Turned out that sometimes, a perfect square waved in the same direction on both top and bottom (this is what you want in modular working!), but more often both the first and the last waving rows were either both inward-waving, or both outward-waving. I attempted various things to deal with this problem while working through i; the main tactic became to start alternate squares at a different point in the wave, so that they would match up to each other even though I didn't have an even number of waves in the square; and it more or less worked out, but I wasn't exactly making life easy for myself when it came to the layout.

I have no idea if the above paragraph even makes sense. Sorry.

So ANYway, I have pretty mixed feelings at this stage (and somehow the colours don't look nearly as brilliant as I think they should!), and it's honestly hard for me to look at this objectively and figure out whether it's acceptable for gifting, as originally intended. I rather suspect it isn't, which is a huge pity.

Still and all. If I were to suddenly stumble across 30 balls*** of Kureyon, would I do it again? Absolutely. I'd *love* to. But two little changes, I think, would make an awful lot of difference:
1. I'd restrict myself to just 6 carefully selected colourways; and
2. instead of working square by square, I'd work it in 5 strips.
I'd plan the colour layout before I started, with each strip containing the 6 different colourways in a different order. It would make them rather less portable, after the first couple of balls, but it would be so very much better in every other way.

_____
* To crochet one "square": work 38ch, then turn and work 1dc in 3rd ch from hook. Work 1dc in each chain to end. Next row: 2dc, *1htr, 2tr, 3dtr, 2tr, 1htr, 3dc, rep from *, end 2dc.
Next row: dc to end.
Next row: CHANGE WORKING YARN, 3ch, 1dtr, *2tr, 1htr, 3dc, 1htr, 2tr, 3dtr, rep from *, end 2dtr.
Next row: dc to end. Change working yarn.
Repeat these four rows, alternating working end of yarn** every 2 rows.

** You know how this works, right? Lizard Ridge uses one ball of Kureyon per square; the stripes are created by alternating between the centre-pull and the outer end of the yarn.

*** Yeah, that's another thing; the crochet squares do come out rather smaller than the knit version, using the same amount of yarn.

Posted by Robynn at 05:18 PM | Permalink | 10 cups of tea on the table

Helloooo knitters! I've missed you. The past couple of weeks have been... interesting. As I mentioned, my mother was in town; a big personality in a small flat. She is a lovely, sweet, generous woman, but remarkably exhausting to be around. And of course I've had very little time to tend to my usual business. But I'm back; and this morning the sun was shining, Beloved was sleeping (so his camera was untended), and I figured that would be the perfect opportunity to take some decent pictures for once. You know what I found out?

Even with a great camera and in beautiful sunshine, I still can't take decent pictures of knitting. So my hat is off to all of you who make it look so easy. I will just never be one of those yarn pr0n superstars (you know the ones I mean... the ones who make you want to reach into your screen and touch their knitting). My pictures are strictly for information, not excitement.

With that disclaimer in mind... wanna see some knitting?

As previously seen and spoken of, we have some socks.

I'm hitting Second Sock Syndrome big-time on these. Didn't happen with the Jaywalkers, but then I really haven't enjoyed using this yarn. Squeaky. And dark. Turns out I don't really like these colours, though I do think they're a good masculine combination that Armin should be pleased with. Actually, even the first sock isn't really finished - I thought I could get away with a regular cast-off, which just shows how little I know. I need to redo that with some more elastic technique, or they'll never make it over the ankle.

Then again maybe it's not the second sock problem - maybe it's just that I haven't had much knitting time At All, as shown by my dramatic lack of progress on the thicker socks I'm doing in Wollmeise's Granatapfel, to learn the magic loop technique (which is an absolute blast, and I love the yarn, and I love the socks, and it's all fabulous but I hit that point at the heel - having done it once and frogged - where I need to pay a bit more attention, and that just isn't happening right now.

I need mindless knitting. Which is also why that denim jacket I got so excited about is languishing.

I got cold feet. I have absolutely no reason to worry about my design for this, except that I don't seem to have the time/focus needed to get my calculations right first time, and this is denim yarn, made to shrink, and I've never used it before, and yes of course I swatched and washed the swatch and all... but I got cold feet. Do I need the stress? No I don't. So I'm going to make this instead, with maybe just a couple of cables thrown on for fun, and a rather shorter length. It'll do. It won't be quite the adorable thing I had in mind, but there's a strong chance my version wouldn't turn out that adorable *anyway*, so I may as well try my hand at basic pattern following. It'll be fun! And so novel.

So last weekend, on a little trip to Dorset with some friends (and what a glorious weekend it was), I decided I wanted to try something completely new. None of these just-a-little-bit stuck projects I had already on the needles. Something new. Something gorgeous. Something utterly clever, yet mindless.

A moebius.

It is perfect. Absolutely perfect. I just keep knitting stitch after stitch, round and round, with only the teensiest bit of wrapping and such to provide variation; but the innate freakiness of the Moebius structure, plus the magical wonder of the beautiful colour changes (this is Artyarns Silk Rhapsody, by the way, of which I am deeply enamoured), keeps me absolutely riveted. Such fun.

Posted by Robynn at 03:30 PM | Permalink | 3 cups of tea on the table