Friday, May 30, 2008

Gaaaaaah! Trois

If I am going to keep from losing my shit over all this yarn and all these ideas swirling around in my head, I am going to have to prioritize.

I, Dirtbunny, hereby decree that no new projects will be started until some old projects are finished, not counting the Bean hat and the tiger socks and maybe the March sock club socks.

That may not sound like much to you, but to me it means that all this:



.........gets put away out of sight so I can't obsess about it.

There. It is done.

Breathing in, I am a flower. Breathing out, I am fresh.

By the way, do any of you recognize this?:



That, badly photographed as it is, is Tiki's water dish. Today, like most days, it contains water and a single waterlogged floating kibble. Tiki will eat all manner of UGOs. He eats acrylic yarn (which is really plastic, when you think of it). He eats his own barf, and with great enthusiasm, I might add. But he finds soggy kibble in his water dish to be too disgusting to eat. Go figger.

Gaaaaaah! Deux

So Yarn Bandit has been brushed and I cleaned the brushes and dragged The Boys back inside and went back to the cleaning up of the yarn piles thing I was doing. My next step was to deal with the Poppy sleeve, which is now complete, or so I thought. First to separate the light grey from the dark grey, and then the several balls and skeins of blue into piles by their two different dye lots. The non-Poppy yarn over here into that Ziploc bag, and the Poppy yarn over there into the other Ziploc bag. Hey, this ball of yarn sure has a long tail. Let me yank on it until I find the end and then I'll wind it up.

Bunny wises up after mistakenly ripping out half the bind-off on the Poppy sleeve. She had finished, i.e., she was done knitting and had bound off, but she hadn't finished, i.e. cut the yarn and tied it off. Dumbass.

The Poppy sleeve has been rescued, the pieces parts and the needles I was using have been stowed, and now I have de-yarned my desk, although there is plenty more yarn to deal with elsewhere in the house. And now it's time to switch over the laundry and vacuum dog hair off the sofas.

Gaaaaah! Gaaaah!

This house is an embarrassing crap hole of yarn piles, knitting book piles, and assorting yarn-related detritus strewn about in a stress-inducing anxiety-making way. Every flat surface in this house is covered either in yarn or dog hair (it's warming up and they are shedding). The Old Folks are coming tomorrow and there is no where to sit.


I have bathed Kirby and now I need a bit of a rest before I can start working on denuding the Yarn Bandit of his winter coat, so I started poking through the yarn mess to see where we are with what.
Here is the Ye Olde Yarne baby hat:

You will see that I ripped out the old version. The rolled edge didn't look right, so here we have a do-over with a ribbed cuff, and a little I-cord top knot. This is for Poppy. I hope it bears some relationship to the size of a small human head so that Poppy could actually wear it someday.

Here are the stripeys:

They are displayed to advantage on my new sock blockers. What, may you ask, is that in the background? That is someone's jacket---not mine---draped over the back of the same chair where it has lived for about three weeks now. I bet you one hundred billion dollars that someone--not me--hangs it up in the closet before the Old Folks get here tomorrow.

Yesterday, to my great delight, I received the May sock club sock. This yarn is uncommonly beautiful, but for now, it goes into the drawer where it will wait its turn.

It is time to start a new plain sock. I'm not sure what to do. I have another skein of stripey, and another skein in another color, and I would like them to be done. I also have a bunch of different self-patterning stuff I want to get to. I am most called to do a set of tiger socks, but starting those now would violate my rule prohibiting more than one Ye Olde Yarne project at once, because I had planned to start a pink hat for The Bean from some heavyweight socks that rock leftover from the twinkle toes. Can't do both.

I defer that decision until after I brush Tiki.

Bunny out.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

When the going gets rough, the Bunny gets startitis

So these are the mini-socks that saved me from quitting knitting forever:




The next mini-socks are from leftover Lorna's Laces in "Daffodil":



I finished the red lace scarf except for the blocking.



It still looks like ass:




When my new blocking wires get here, we'll find out whether this was all just a big honking waste of time.

The purple lace scarf, also Lorna's Laces, is about half done.




And sock number two of the stripey socks is about 45 minutes away from being finished:


This leaves the teal sweater. Here we have the seven-foot lace and cable panel being unraveled and knit into a Bunny-sized lace panel:


Then you may remember what happened next. I am happy to report that Dirtbunny successfully got 250 evenly-spaced picked-up stitches from the 99 repeats without spilling any more beer on herself. And so here we are now:



I am unhappy to report that the next step is to knit 15 inches of plain stockinette stitch, increasing four stitches every 10 rows, to end up with a whopping 290 stitches. Of stockinette stitch. Fifteen fucking inches worth. Paying attention to the row count required because of the increases. I fear this is going to take a while. I may not be done in two weeks after all, not that that was ever really going to happen.

If I were monogamous, which I am not, I would probably die of boredom. I might die of boredom anyway. When knitting gets boring, one has two choices:



  1. Finish it.
  2. Start something else.

I am a polyamorous knitter, so I decided to have an orgy, I mean, I undertook to begin a pile of new projects.


This is a baby hat from Ye Olde Yarne, to wit, leftover from Tiki's red sweater, which you saw here:



Let's all pretend that I have enough yarn to finish without having to frog it all and try again in a smaller size.


Further (my boss loves that word), some new ribbed socks in a light blue merino:



I have decided not to take into account that I am a loose knitter, and I am going for the 64 stitches on size 2s as the pattern demanded, pretending that the fact that it is ribbed will mean that it will not be too big for the normal human foot, or that there is a large-footed man out there who would love a pair of light blue socks.


Is that all? No, of course not. I have retrieved the leftover yarn from the fair isle dog sweater, and am poised to cast-on a fair isle hat to match it. Books of patterns for dog outfits also tend to have a selection of human outfits designed to match because some dog people think it's just too cute to go out dressed the same as the dog. Not so much around here. The fact that I've knitted dog sweaters is as far as I am going to go in that direction. Nevertheless, I like the fair isle pattern, I have enough yarn left to make at least one hat, and maybe two, and no one has to know that it matches a dog sweater.


But wait!


There's more!


We are expecting two new knitters, Bean and Poppy, who are expected to be born in October, and surely there is something in the stash destined for them.


Calm down, Mom. They are not expected to be born from me.


Anyway, here is 80% of a sleeve for Poppy:



This will be followed by more baby stuff, as we have two yarn shopping trips planned, and I have some ideas about some other stuff I already have. And I have two skeins of stuff that I need to do something with because they've been around a while and I'm sick of them. And I need a plain sock to knit once I'm done with the stripeys. And if the lace looks good, I've got 1580 yards of mohair lace weight that I bought long before I realized that lace weight is different from other yarn. And it's time for the May sock club sock to arrive, which means it's time to start the March sock club sock. And I have a sweater's worth of red yarn for The Man's next sweater. And plenty more brown crap for another beagle blanket.

I think I've just typed myself up into a frenzy. I need to take some deep breaths, and maybe I should knit a few rows on the teal sweater to put me to sleep, I mean, to calm me down.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Vaya Con Dios, Dirtbunny

Dirtbunny has completed 99 repeats of the cable and lace panel for her sweater. According to the pattern directions, she is supposed to do 124 repeats.

The point here is to end up with a lace panel that is long enough to engirth the Bunny while simultaneously ending up with a perfect 250 selvage stitches to pick up.

Bunny has a lace panel that is long enough, but only 200 selvage stitches.

[Bunny takes a long and nervous pull from her beer. Naturally, she dribbles some of it down her front.]

Now Bunny is no super-genius like her brother Aaron, but she is good at math. Bunny has calculated that if she picks up five stitches from every four selvage stitches, she will end up with a magical 250 stitches.

Or she can continue to follow the pattern and make a lace panel that will encircle the Bunny by about 130%.

[Bunny has some more beer.]

Patterns lie. Gauge swatches lie. Math does not lie.

[Bunny has some more beer and mulls over the options.]

Bunny decides to go for it and deviate from the pattern in favor of math. The worst that can happen is she'll fuck it up. There's no jail for bad row gauge.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Maybe Bunny won't quit knitting

So I quit knitting forever on account of the mendacious gauge swatches. But my life felt a little empty. So I went through my cookie box full of sock yarn leftovers and picked something out and made a mini-sock. While Kirby watched.....



I took a picture of it:



That's a pretty good looking sock. Nice yarn, nice even stitches, good mastery of teeny tiny size 00 needles. I felt some satisfaction and thought maybe I could knit another so I'd have a pair. That is going OK.
So I worked on the purple lace scarf. I've dropped three stitches so far and haven't been able to get them back, so it isn't perfect. But it's still nice.
And I picked up the red lace scarf. It's almost done. I could probably finish it today, but I don't think I will. It looks pretty crappy, but it'll come together when I block it. And I "can't" do that until I get some lace blocking wires because there is "no other possible way" to block lace. So, hardship of hardships, I need to go shopping at yarn stores and yarn websites until I find some.
And the stripey socks look pretty good, so maybe I'll cast on the second one.
Hmmmm. This is starting to feel not so bad. Maybe I don't have to quit knitting forever.
I know! Maybe I could knit the cable and lace panel on much smaller needles and switch to bigger needles when it's time to work the stockinette part! That'll work! And maybe before I've invested an entire week in it (like I did with the seven-foot panel--lordy was I in denial), I'll take some measurements and do some math to see if it's working! I can start with 5s and I can go down all the way to 000s, and somewhere in there is going to be a needle size that gets me the row gauge I want. At least I'm not the only one having trouble with row gauge this week.

Bunny Quits Knitting Forever

Remember the gauge swatches? They lied. My sweater starts off with a long, narrow panel of lace and cabling, then I'm supposed to turn it sideways so it creates an empire waist and pick up the selvage stitches to do the top and bottom. Bunny is a large person. Larger than she ought to be. However, Dirtbunny is not seven feet around the middle, which is what her 134 repeats of cables and lace were going to end up. The gauge swatches lied. They are evil. So I quit. The end.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Bunny starts kntting her sweater

It took a week, but Bunny has finally started her sweater. The yarn colorway is "teal," but this yarn is about as teal as The Man's red socks were red. That's fine. I love the color regardless of its name, and wouldn't love it nearly so much if it were actually teal.

So the pattern wants me to get 20 stitches per 4 inches on size 8 needles. Bunny already knows that she's a loose knitter ("loose" -- snerk), so she started her gauge swatch on size 7 needles and got 19 stitches. Sez Bunny, Hey! I bet size 6 will work! So she pulls out her size 6 needles and gets 22 stitches. And then she notices that her size 6 needles are really size 5 needles in the size 6 case, and that the actual size 6 needles are in the size 5 case, which means she has 19 stitches on size 7 and 22 stitches on size 5. This leaves room for the possibility of actually achieving the target gauge if I knit on actual size 6 needles, so I give it a try: 21 stitches. Here are my three gauge swatches:



See, I really want this sweater to turn out, and I'm taking gauge seriously. My choice is now between 7s, which will get me a sweater about 5% bigger than the target measurements, or 6s, which will give me a sweater about 5% smaller than the target measurements. Bunny chooses the larger. And so I cast on my 22 stitches with the long-tail cast-on method I taught myself from a diagram after I saw Megan do it at knitting circle and decided I should figure it out. And I knit three repeats of the cable-lace-cable pattern that makes up the band, the intent being to pick up selvage stitches from the band later to knit the body of the sweater. Only my selvage stitches look like ass, so I rip it all out and start over, only I manage only to get 21 stitches on the needles this time, so I rip it out again. That was yesterday. At this point, I have 14 repeats of the 4-row pattern done. It looks great. I love it. Only 120 repeats to go before I can actually start on the sweater itself.

I finished the birdseye hat from ye olde yarne:


I'm making good progress on the stripey socks:


and I finished the pair of tofu mini-socks. I still have enough tofu yarn left to make two more pairs.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Something Different

Bunny has been depressed. Her friend Pammie is gone, and we can't open the windows to this wonderful weather because of The Man's allergies, but the real reason I'm depressed is that I have this brain chemistry thing that clogs my head up with shit thoughts like how much I suck and nobody loves me, etc. We are working pretty hard on this, and right now my only real job around the house is to get better, not that I was doing much around here anyway except keeping the whole damn household afloat by the sheer dint of will. Is "dint" a word? I don't know. But anyhoo, I am trying something new this month. I met my April knitting goals (here are the ribbed socks):





They turned out nice. But this month, my only goal is to work on getting better. You heard me.



NO KNITTING GOALS.



NO GOALS OF ANY KIND.



I'm not making any lists. I'm not even carrying my planner around. Just me and whatever the day may bring. Isn't that weird? Well, I think it's weird. I'm used to consulting at least two to-do lists every day.



This mindset has given me a wicked case of startitis. But first:






I finished my muppet stole. I started the second ball of yarn in the car on the way to Pam's funeral. I took one of my special new mellow-making meds, and I worked the muppet stole in the car and then I went to the service and sat with The Man and my boss and my boss's boss and I cried kind of a lot which freaked out my boss and then I went to the reception, which is not normal for me (normally I flee) and I actually stayed for about an hour and talked to people, which is pretty extraordinary for me what with the hearing impairment and the grief and all. I left the knitting in the car.


OK, I lied. I left the muppet knitting in the car. I put an emergency sock in my purse and took it with me just in case, but I didn't get it out.


But now the muppet stole is done. It's cuddly and comforting and I don't care if it makes me look like Cookie Monster's fat old homeless Auntie. Pammie would say, "Hey, Babe, whatever it takes." I really miss her.

And so I have a lot of stuff going on. I'm still churning away at the red lace scarf, and there's still nothing to see. I started a Birdseye Hat from Ye Olde Yarne, and I started a mini sock from the leftover tofu yarn after chucking some leftover Monsoon yarn having determined that it was not enough for a pair of mini socks. I've got something going from the purple lace weight, and I have a new pair of plain ole socks that I'm not bored with yet:


And today I got this in the mail:

A box full of new yarn. This is big news. A whole sweater's worth of yarn just for me! How serious am I about this new yarn?


A gauge swatch. That's how fucking serious I am.

Oh, I exaggerated a wee bit about what I do around the house. I haven't really done much of anything for months except pay bills, make out a grocery list every week, water the plants, and cook maybe twice a week. The Man does everything. I suck and no one loves me, etc.

Ding! Time for more meds!