Yup. Still knitting.

Still learning Photobucket and it's messing up my formatting.  Please be patient.


Anyhoo, Ima knitting socks.  Here are three very exciting pairs:

So you have here your plain blue sock in a child's size, the cuff of a plain self-striping sock in a grown-up size, and the November sock club sock, which is actually a variegated red/green/gray combo and which doesn't photograph well.

And this is La Viola scarf.  They are in the Champions League round of sixteen and their next match is February 17, so I have to be finished by then.   I kinda like them, so they get a scarf, which will be worn during matches for its positive karmic properties.   Now that Adi Mutu has flunked another a drug test, they're gonna need it.  I can't believe I found the proper shade of violet yarn!

This is the beginnings of a secret project for Bean 2.0, who we are expecting to see in June and who we have have recently discovered is a male child.  This yarn is lovely, the color of a ripe papaya (the insides, duh, not the peel).

So that blue bit there was an Azzurri WCS.  Get a good look, cuz I've already ripped it out and started over. And the gray bit is the beginning of a sleeve of a cardi that is going to require steeks.  Steeks are too monstrous to contemplate right now, so I will explain them to you some other time when you're older and can understand better.

And this here?  This here is the big boy:

The telescope is not mine.  No, he does not use it to spy on the Steinmetz daughters across the street!  Gross!  How could you think such a thing?  Plus they've all grown up and gone to college now.  And I don't think their last name is really Steinmetz.  Yup.  This here is the Juno Regina scarf.  I started out loving it.  Now I'm in the interminable monotonous middle section.  If I don't die of boredom, in about 8 more inches, I can go back to fun diamond-patterned lace!  Woohoo!  DISCLAIMER: lace looks like ass before blocking

And it's fucking freezing in here because when the guys took the furnace out of the sun room closet as part of the Hellhole Rehabilitation Project of 2009, they left behind a hole in the floor of the closet that opens directly into the crawlspace, with only a screen and an old furnace filter to block the minus 3* degrees air pouring in from outside.  We're going to fix it, but not this afternoon.  And because it's freezing, my fingers are getting stiff and my feet are starting to hurt and I'm getting really tired of doing this, and I started about 90 minutes ago and have been stumbling through the learning curve ever since. 

*I need to learn the Celsius scale, because all the good football broadcasts give the gameday weather in metric.  Weren't we supposed to convert to the metric system back in the 80s?  Goddamn Republicans.  Oh.  So the translation into Uhmurrican weather is 26 degrees Fahrenheit.

This post powered by cold green tea and the fear of ending up like that guy in "To Build a Fire"

Old photo clean up, part two

Number Five

The first of the world cup scarves.  This one is for the Oranje.  I think I started it first because they qualified early and because I felt like giving the orange yarn a go.  I have learned a thing or two about striped scarves since then.  My later designs are much better, so I 'm glad the experimental scarf was not one of my most favorite of favorites.


Number Six

That's right.  Another Baby Surprise Jacket.


Number Seven

One pair of gigantic god-awful socks fashioned from the corpse of the dearly departed Ziggy socks.  And so I have tried Noro Kureyon sock and I need never bother again.  Ick.  Oh yeah.  There was snow last month.

Giotto Woe and the Cure for Giotto Woe

"We have the technology. We can rebuild her."



But before we get to that, this is how The Man and I enjoyed the Peace Cup final, which the Bianconeri lost by trying to shoot penalty kicks with their heads up their butts. Even ADP. Especially ADP. We started out with a bottle of an Italian sparkling red wine and a July sock and when the wine made the July sock too hard, we switched to a Stitch and Pitch square. The sock and square are now done, and I don't remember what the wine was, which is fine because it was too sweet for us. We'll stick to Prosecco. Only 9 more days to the beginning of the Serie A season.

And that brings me to Giotto woe. Remember how one of the fronts was too long? I knew it was coming, but I decided to ignore it instead of fixing it while it would still be easy to fix it. Sometimes when you try to embrace the idea that not everything has to be perfect all the time, you get scrooed end up with something that the compulsive part of you cannot live with. So to fix the Giotto sweater, I had to disassemble the Giotto sweater:

Not fun. Not fun at all. But my new replacement front is one the needles and might be done this week if there's anything good on the toob I get around to it. I thought I was done and I almost put the pattern book in the recycle bin. I'm glad I'm such a fucking pack rat I didn't.

Instead, because I didn't use up all the Giotto yarn, I started a Giotto scarf, which I now can't finish until the Giotto sweater is repaired, because I'm worried that I'll run out of yarn. This is ridiculous, of course. I have ripped out something and am using the yarn to make something smaller which means it will use less yarn, even with what I'll need for the re-edging and re-seaming.

This means that the Giotto scarf is in limbo, even though it doesn't need to be. And how, you may ask, does Dirtbunny distract herself from all this needless mental suffering? Cmon. You know the answer.

She retreats to her boudoir for a long sulk, because she's a big baby.

WRONG! She gets a wicked case of startitis. And so, behold:

Haha! Just kidding. This is actually an old project, a lace mohair cowl, which is almost mindless monkey knitting, and it would be done already if I didn't hate working with mohair. This is the last of the ancient mohair from days of yore. I don't think we'll be getting any more of that at the LYS.

Psych again! This is the March sock club sock, which is another not quite new project. This is the kind of thing you do four or eight rows on right before you go to sleep (instead of reading which is what normal people do).

Let's get to some real startitis projects shall we?

Numero Uno:

Here we have a lace scarf in lavender with a butterfly motif. Really! Can't you see the butterflies? OK, well, I just started so it doesn't have butterflies yet. The hard part was gettting the provisional cast-on right. A provisional cast-on leaves you with live stitches that you can pick up and knit onto later, which makes it great for adding an edging to, say, a butterfly scarf, so the edging looks the same on both ends when the scarf is worn. And also, a nephew sock. What you see there is how much sock you can knit when mildly sedated and riding in the car around the Beltway to a futbol game while giving The Man directions (because Dirtbunny is presumed to know where everything is, even places she's never been to before.) I'll have to compare the newphew sock circumference to the nephew foot circumference I got in the email today to see if we have a match.

This is a Ziggy sock. It's a toe-up jobbie. I am using Noro Kureyon Sock. Everyone loves Noro Kureyon. I dunno. It seems pretty itchy to me. We'll see.

This is a SIL sock. She picked the yarn. (I think she picked this yarn.) I'm using the March pattern from last year. If I remember correctly, it was a fun knit, and this is good yarn, so yay.

Good gravy! There's more? Yes there is. This is a baby blanket from Pam yarn in a traditional feather and fan pattern, which mind end up being completely oscured by the yarn's chenille texture. What-ev. It's going to be stripey, and the stripes will show off the waviness of the pattern, if nothing else.

This is not the endof the Pam yarn. I still have three beautiful skeins of red merino in sock weight. I had intended to use the yarn to knit a seed-stitch scarf for Ray-Ray, because he loved Pam too and she was heavy into seed stitch and its variations, so I thought it might be nice for him to have something that was sort of hers. Problem is, I mentioned this to Ray-Ray (to see if he would be OK with it) before I realized that it was sock weight yarn and I don't have enough for a scarf. I could make him three red socks, but Pamie probably wouldn't have made him socks. I could make a pretty, girly lace scarf, but I don't think that's Ray-Ray's thang. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it now. Hat? Dunno. Red mittens? Maybe. I'll have to ask him.

Are you wondering about the kimono shawl? It's in the drawer. I'm at the point where I'm waiting for more yarn to arrive in the mail and when it gets here, I'm going to have to blend the new with the old to obscure any dye-lot variations.

And that's how Dirtbunny forgets about how incompetent she is her most recent major fuckup her little mishap with the Giotto sweater. And that brings us to Tiki Tinkle Time, so I have to go now. I'm going to hit "publish" without proofreading. What's the worst that can happen?

Bunny Learns the Hard Way

I finished the Giotto cardigan. I sewed the seams and knitted the edging and put the buttons on and it was done. But I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something was wrong. One of the fronts was longer than the other. So much longer that creative button placement and seaming was not solving the problem. It was simply not good enough. So I stewed about it for a while, and now it is done.

Meaning, I undid the edging and some of the seams and ripped back the too-long front and I'm going to do it over. Next step is to take the buttons off the other side, realign them, measure them, and come up with a plan for the do-over. I plan to cast on by the end of the day.

Needless to say I am a failure sad. To prove I am capable of knitting sometimes cheer myself up, here are the recently finished July socks.

I think maybe today is going to be the kind of day where I cast on a bunch of new things and finish nothing.

Math trouble

So here's a question for you. If you are making a cardigan and want both sides of the front to be the same size, is it best to knit the same number of rows on each side, or is it more accurate to measure and knit the same number of centimeters?


The correct answer is: Neither. Both methods lie. The only thing you can do is some twisted combination of the two and hope for the best.

My buttonholes do not match my button places, so I am going to have to realign my button markers. I've stopped aiming for perfect accuracy. It will turn out OK in the end.

By the way, this is a cardigan from Pam yarn. You may remember it from swatch day. Also, I am showing you a completed blue Regia self-striping sock. I told you it was nothing exciting. The stitch and pitch squares are almost done, and I'm thinking about what my next project should be. I've got a few sweaters on the list, and a cookie box full of leftover sock yarn, and a closet full of new sock yarn, and three or four Knitty.com patterns printed out and waiting for me.

Does Dirtbunny still Knit?

She does. She most definitely does. She's just been a little obsessed lately.


A few weeks ago, Dirtbunny had a birthday. Her birthday present was to go on a yarn crawl and buy yarn to make a spring sweater. She had picked out her yarn in advance (Rowan Calmer), she had a color in mind (blue) and she even had a gauge swatch done, yardage calculated, the whole shebang. And so on the appointed day, she went to the LYS--the one that offers the big birthday discount. Now it turns out that the big birthday discount applies only to in-store purchases, not to orders. And it turns out that the LYS did not have enough of the yarn in stock. We're not talking about not enough yarn for a Bunny-sized sweater, but not enough yarn for a normal-sized sweater either. In any of the colors. There would be no big birthday discount.


OK. So we'll order. Ask yourself: How well do you know your Dirtbunny? Think that over for a moment and then read on.


Can Bunny order the yarn she wants?

No

Even at full price?

No

Why not?

BECAUSE THE COLOR SHE WANTS IS DISCONTINUED.

Of course.


See? See? It isn't just me, is it? I'm cursed, right?


Sigh. Well and just Fuck it, thinks Dirtbunny. If I can't have what I want, then I'll just get a comparable yarn from what's in stock. And so she does. But not in blue, because blue yarn is apparently not being made this year. In pink. Yup. Pink is good, pink is fine, I wear pink all the damn time. And I bought a few other small things too. And I stacked it all up in the yarn chest because we will not be starting the spring sweater until the crimson sweater is done.


Fast forward two weeks. That goddamn pink yarn is burning a hole in Dirtbunny's head. It's nice. It's great. BUT it isn't what I really wanted. Bunny wants what Bunny wants. So we return to the LYS to order the yarn she wants, but not in blue, in yellow, so Bunny can replace the ragged yellow sweater she wears around the house.


And so she goes to the LYS. She needs 19 1/4 balls, which means she needs 20. They have 19 in stock.


See? I'm cursed, right?

Dirtbunny buys the 19 balls of yellow yarn. It has been a long long long time since Bunny ended up short and she gambles that it will all work out in the end. She is most certainly not obsessing over the extra one ball. It's not going to be a problem. She hardly ever even thinks about it. No big deal. So what? Lalalalalalalalala


And that is why Dirtbunny's yarn inventory has gone way way up.


But there is some good news. First, Bunny finished the brown beagle wubbie, which means that the last of the crappy brown acrylic from 15 years ago is finally gone.




Isn't it gorgeous? (not) But it's perfect for The Boys, and it closes the circle on a very important nagging pebble in Bunny's size 11AA shoes.


Also, we have socks:




The navy blue ones in the center are the Earl Grey socks. I am doing them on size zero DPNs because the pattern wants 72 stitches, and I normally do 60 or 64 so I need them to be smaller. The combination of dark dark yarn and teeny tiny stitches means it is impossible for me to see what I'm doing unless I knit with glasses off, right up in my face, and under a bright desk lamp. (Bifocals? Who said anything about bifocals? Shut the fuck up. How old do you think I am?) I offer no predictions on when, if ever, these are going to be done.

The peachypinky ones on the left are the July prime sock club socks. They're easy and kind of uninspiring, so I'm not spending a lot of time on them.


The greenyyellowbluepinky ones in the middle and on the far right are The Man's Self-Selected Don't Blame Bunny socks. Based on feedback from a recent poll, Dirtbunny let The Man into her sock yarn stash and permitted him to choose his own yarn for his next pair of socks. This is what he chose. I think they are very, very pretty. I'm a little surprised that The Man chose something so pretty, but hey, what do I care really?


And there is the Bianconeri scarf. The less said about the Bianconeri, the better. I knit on this while I'm watching them, but it's not helping them win.







I should probably give you a link to explain what the Bianconeri are, but they are playing a game live right now in Catania, and if I link them, I'll probably get a spoiler on the current score, and I'm saving the game for later. So

BIANCONERI = THE OLD LADY = JUVENTUS

Bunny's favorite futbol team. Although you could have googled it if you cared. Moving right along.




Now HERE is where I spend most of my knitting time:

[Please to notice one Yarn Bandit keeping an eye on me because I'm in the kitchen after all and you never know when I might give him a treat. Also, Kirby's dogbutt.]

Anyway. hmmmm.

Crimson sweater. Lovelovelovelove. &hearts&hearts&hearts Two sleeves and the back are done, half of one of the fronts is done, and I'm not bored yet. I have, however, poked a hole in the side of my thumb pushing on the tips of my addi Turbos , but I just tape it up and keep going. Cabley goodness. Yum.

Voila: Winter Cardigan

Many, many, many rows of plain stockinette with little shaping, then about 12,000 stitches of ruffled lace edging, and this is the best photo I can get:







I am happy with this. It fits. It is reasonably flattering, considering that I am the one who is going to be wearing it. It's fancy enough for work. It's made from a warm and cuddly blend of alpaca, merino, and silk. It doesn't have as much dog hair knitted into it as you might think, although I don't know how I pulled that off and I doubt I'll be able to replicate it in the future. It goes with everything I ordinarily wear to work. It's a little girly, but not too much. It's mostly plain, but shows off some of the knitter's skill as well. The edging was a bitch--500 two-stranded stitches crowded onto a circular needle, and I poked a pretty big hole in my thumb before I decided to tape it. (Sports injury? Tape it up and get back out there! Knitting injury? Tape it up and get back out there!) The hole in my thumb has healed and so I declare the sweater a success, and I give myself an A.



Do you know what this means?

That's right! Gauge swatches! You are getting good at this. My next cardigan is this one, and I will be making it from a wonderful, beautiful 8-ply merino in a lovely shade of red that is flattering to Bunny's pale and rosy complexion. I have been lusting obsessively for this sweater since it came out in Knitty this fall. I might have dropped a few hints in my Christmas post.

The Man takes a lot of slagging here at the Dirtbunny network, and he does a lot of silly little things to deserve it. However, on the big stuff, he is a good guy. Dude took a hint. He went on the interweb. He printed the sweater pattern. He printed out my blog post with the yarn suggestions. He took it all to the LYS. He showed it to the clerk and said "I want to get Dirtbunny yarn to make this sweater in this size. Red, Pink, or Icy Blue. Natural Fibers. Shows off cables well. I don't know what this means but she said softer than Cascade 220." The clerk made some suggestions and The Man narrowed it down to several shades of red in Karabella Aurora 8. And he chose "crimson," which has precisely the cool undertones that flatter Bunny so well. I could not have chosen better myself. I am so pleased with it.

I have had my usual gauge swatch drama. Papa Bear is waaaay too big. Baby Bear is waaaay too small. Mama Bear is a little too big but probably close enough and, since there is no needle size in between Mama and Baby, Ima goin with Mama Bear.

I'm a little worried that I am not going to look exactly like the English Raphaelite-ish model in the picture when I put it on, but that's my cross to bear.

Secret Project Hermes

Many of you have probably already guessed, but Secret Project Hermes was actually a Man Christmas sweater. It turned out a leetle big, but no dye lot crisis this time, and no major mistakes that I didn't catch in time. Plus, although it sat out in the open next to my desk for the two months or so it took me to finish it, The Man never noticed and was completely surprised. When I can get away with that just by acting casual, it makes me wonder how--HOW?--I could possibly have lost the Battle of the Door. It isn't fair.

So there he is, all clad. He is also pleased with the long johns I got him (although I'm not sure he understands that they are underwear and not pants. Did you know if they have a Y-fly, you are meant to wear something over them, mmmkay?)

The other secret project, and the last completed project of 2008 was a pair of Man mittens, worked in Ye Olde Yarne leftover from the grey sweater. No picture. I remember him pulling them out of his stocking, so I know they're somewhere, but I haven't seen them since Christmas morning and he continues to wear the old grey mittens with the giant hole in them. I knitted the new grey mittens right under his very nose and he never bothered to ask who they were for. Another surprise.

The Man and his Cluelessness:

• Con: he doesn't notice when I cut my hair or shave my legs.
• Pro: he doesn't notice when I don't shave my legs either.

Do You Want to See Ab-Fab?

Ab-Fab wants four pattern repeats (more or less). I have one, and here it is:









Today's plan is all Ab-Fab, all the time. I am mightily sick of the winter cardigan:









I have a back and one of the fronts done, and have started the second front and have about 16 inches of stockinette to look forward to before I even start the shaping. Yawn. Not much of a photo, either, is it?



I have two socks going. One is the second of the May sock club socks. It's time to do the gusset increases, but I am working on Ab-Fab today. The second is a plain sock in a green and blue yarn that is not for The Man. Lately he seems to think that if it isn't for me, it might be for him. Well this one isn't for him, so don't even ask.









Nice sunshine and autumn leaves, but not very true yarn colors.



I can also report significant progress on the secret project, but if I said anything else, I would blow the secret.



When the Ab-Fab is done, I am going to do one last beagle blanket and finish off the crappy brown acrylic once and for all. I even had a pattern (of sorts) picked out, but it was in a book-that-is-no-more so I'm going to have to see if I can find it in one of the other books or replace the one that Yarn Bandit ate. We'll see. Trolling through my yarn books usually leads to startitis and stash enhancement, and I've been so good lately.

Sob

As promised, here is a photo of The Man's red sweater in natural light:

He is getting a haircut later today and hasn't shaved in a few days, so he asked to have his head cut off. It's about the sweater, not the model.

Can you see the problem? It isn't my fault. I swear! I followed all the rules of dye lots. I almost cried. When oh when is Bunny ever going knit a half-decent adult-sized sweater? I despair. Sob!

Kirby sez: "How can you go outside without friend Kirby?"

And these are also done:

They are perfect, exactly what yarn in this colorway is supposed to produce. Ugly, but perfect. They were toe-up by the way. Dirtbunny usually goes top-down.

And now I am down to four projects, none of which are suitable for the car or easily transported. Ima gonna have to start another pair of socks. The stash is out, but nothing is calling to me.