Sad but necessary

Sad thing the first: No pictures for two blog posts in a row Fixed!

Sad thing the second: Sad for me at least... I'm going to drastically cut back my knitting time for the next month or so. I've been feeling some pain in my left elbow lately and up until now have just tried to help it out with stretching. To start, I'm cutting out all lunchtime knitting - I've been wanting to read some books anyway - and limiting myself to an hour of knitting at night, and stopping immediately if I feel any pain. I'm also going to be more diligent about stretching, warming up and icing my elbow. I dealt with some Achilles pain over the summer and don't want a repeat performance in my arms.

Sad thing the third: I started the raglan sweater I mentioned in my previous post. With my anticipated knitting-down-time, not only is it going to take longer to finish, but I suspect it's what pushed my pain over the edge. I'm using Bartlettyarns Fisherman 2-ply which is a very 'woolly' yarn. What I mean to say is that it's sticky and doesn't slide through the stitches or on the needle all too well. I made some adjustments - smaller tips on the left needle and two circulars to avoid bunching of stitches - but it's not enough to alleviate the stress on my elbow and forearms.

Sad thing the fourth: Again with the diminished knitting time, I'm likely not going to get to knit the warm stuff for the outdoor hockey game I wanted to. At least I have a bunch of fingering weight wool socks and hats and mittens I can wear. I don't need new stuff. I also probably won't get to knit the Christmas item I wanted to, but that was to be a surprise gift anyway. Maybe next year.

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ETA: I fixed the no photo problem. Yay, only 3 sad things!


Baby's First Halloween

Am I Crazy?

For some strange reason, I feel the itch to knit a sweater. Now, to be completely honest, I've been contemplating sweaters for months now. I have all sorts of aspirations to knit complex Aran cardigans and even have yarn to knit a few. But that's not what I'm talking about this time. I feel the sudden desire for a simple, clean, raglan sweater. No cables, no stitch pattern, just miles of stockinette and some ribbing on the edges; maybe go crazy and turn it into a cardigan with a shawl collar.

Why? I have no idea. With all the knitting I already have planned this month - boot socks and mittens for The Big Chill at The Big House (Go Blue!), a Christmas gift or two, obligatory baby knits - my knitting queue is pretty full. Yet here I stand on Nov. 2 staring down the fact that the only completed sweater I knit for myself took over two months. I don't know if it's the allure of NaKniSweMo, but the sweater beckons nonetheless. The last time I tried deadline knitting a sweater - Ravelympics 2010 - I gave up before I even started. At least, if I do decide to do this as part of NaKniSweMo, I have more time.

FO: Persian Paraphernalia

Pattern: Paraphernalia by Taina Anttila
Yarn: Malabrigo Sock in Persia #852
Needle: Knit Picks fixed circular, size 1
Started: October 31, 2009
Finished: May 8, 2010
Mods: Simplified cable pattern after foot
Ravel It!

I'm actually wearing these socks today, so I thought I would finally blog about them. I finished them way back in the spring, but they sat around waiting to be blocked and photographed while I worked on more socks. They finally got their first outing last week.

I started these socks almost a year ago, on Halloween last year. We were driving my brand spanking new Jeep back from Austin, TX. The yarn is Malabrigo Sock which I received in a Puck This! swap from Judy. I love the color. It's a dark yarn with enough variation to keep things interesting. As you can see, there was no pooling, which is a plus in my book.

I can't remember how I discovered the pattern, but I was in love with it as soon as I did. Unfortunately, I had to make some modifications to the cables, as they barely fit over my heel. At first I thought I could just remove the intertwined cable pattern from the gusset area - it stretched really badly - but I ended up having to adjust the pattern all the way up the leg. You can read more about my attempt to fix the gusset here, which actually worked, I just had to rip back after installing another tangled cable after the fix.

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Thank you so much to everyone who offered congratulations on my previous post. We're very excited, scared, nervous, happy, etc. I'll be cranking out baby knits as much as possible, but there's quite a bit of work on the house - and other things - still left to do in the remaining 6 months. I may be able to get stuff knit, but I'm not too sure I'll get them blogged. As you know, my consistency is a bit lacking.

Subtlety, I Haz It

I've been knitting things.



Small things.



For a small thing.



And in April, this might will be me...

Back to Knitting

What have I been knitting on? Think you can guess from a photo? Those of you on Ravelry can easily figure it out by looking at my projects page, but that's cheating.



Here are a few hints/details:

• It is knit in garter stitch
• It is knit with miters (the corners you can see above are made by increasing)
• It is knit in sock yarn, in this case, Knit Picks Memories that I overdyed with yellow
• It has a unique construction
• It is a garment for a baby or small child
• You could make a larger version simply by using larger needles and thicker yarn
• I only cast on 3 stitches to start!

Give up? You didn't try very hard! Ok, it is this pattern. How many of you guessed the Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmermann? Close but no cigar. I've had this pattern in my Rav queue for quite a while and finally decided to try it out. I've been struggling with what to use this particular yarn for (aside from socks) and I think this is perfect. The constant increases change the stitch count every row, which really helps avoid much pooling. I'm almost to the point of starting the sleeves, so things will start to get really interesting. I have a couple more patterns by this designer in my queue, I'm excited to try out other unique constructions.

P.S. Check out another photo of the same project. Amazing what different lighting will do to a photo. The photo at the top of this post was taken mid-morning, this photo was taken late-evening.

Detroit Lives

I don't often go too far off topic here, but this is an issue that's near and dear to my heart. If you have 30 minutes to spare, won't you check out this documentary on the city of Detroit?

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Once the fourth-largest metropolis in America—some have called it the Death of the American Dream. Today, the young people of the Motor City are making it their own DIY paradise where rules are second to passion and creativity. They are creating the new Detroit on their own terms, against real adversity. We put our boots on and went exploring.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

Chart Coloring

It's been a while, and I've been knitting some things that I can't show you yet, so I thought I would show you how I've marked up my chart for the scarf I have going.



Each row on this lace chart is different, so I absolutely have to pay attention. There's no memorizing going on here. A lot of times, every other row in a lace chart will just be all purl stitches. As you can see above, this is not the case with this pattern. So, in order to keep from having to count the number of purls in a row each time, I highlighted large groupings of purl stitches and then labeled a nice key for myself. Now I can quickly look at the chart and see than an orange section is 10 purl stitches without having to count all the little dash marks. It makes the knitting go much faster. One last thing I want to mention, I only highlighted down to 7 purl stitch sequences (there are no 6 purl st runs) because 5 stitches in a row is pretty easy to pick out on its own. Telling the difference between 8 and 10 at a glance, not so much. Plus I only had 5 different color highlighters.