Knitting in New York

This weekend I'm heading off to NYC for some knitting. Well, that and to go to a concert. I'm excited to see my knitting friend Patrick who relocated there a while back and to see some of the New York yarn stores. Plus riding the Greyhound is a pretty good way to get some knitting done.

Tonight I worked on my Ripple socks - those are coming with me on the trip along with my "California Socks".

And with that, NaBloPoMo is over. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

Secret Knitting

Yep, it's come to be that time of year when the blogosphere abounds with secret knitting.

But looky here:



That's some of my sepia-toned secret knitting right there. Did I mention that purling in Fair Isle is not fun at all? Yeah... not fun. That inch took me over 2 hours!

At any rate, now that I am past the dreaded inch the secret gift item is well on its way and I shall go off and work on it. :)

The Stash Grows

Tonight Cassandra and I headed over to Catherine's to record a bit and I got my BMFA Socks That Rock in Raven colors and Atomic #6.



From left to right: Haida, Atomic #6 (nope, not a Raven) and Rook-y

Then when I got home I had a package from the L&V Prize Patrol also full of sock yarn:



The yarn on the far left was dyed by Miss V and the rest is a variety of Knit Picks yarn that I strangely don't have.

Listening to: Miss Murder ~ A.F.I., In The Shadow of Our Pale Companion ~ Agalloch

Gift Knitting

I'm almost relieved that NaBloPoMo is nearly over. It's been fun, but it's also been a lot of pressure to knit interesting things to blog about. Well tonight I was knitting something interesting, but unfortunately it's a gift and not something I can share on the blog. But you'll see it later, really!

I'm actually having a tough time deciding between working on gifts and trying to get some of the WIPs taken off my long-ish list. I supposed the gifts will win, though. ;)

Back to that contest thing....

So remember back when I had the contest?

Right, well my sock knitting was not half as fast as most of you predicted, and I now know that the winner will be Cindy who guessed November 15th (the latest guess) - and she won't even be off by too much.

Unfortunately, Cindy is also unidentifiable - so if you're she could you please contact me?

Now, back to the sock knitting news. Actually the second half of my Thanksgiving extravaganza was pretty much knitting-free. I finished up those Monkey socks and cast on for the Ripples sock in Yarn Pirate Plum Gorgeous at the train station.

And *then*....

I went shopping, went out for coffee, walked around Greenlake with turtle hot chocolate from Chocolati, had deep philosophical discussions, ate Indian food, and did other assorted non-knitting things for the rest of the trip. And today on the plane? I read about 250 pages of The Time Traveler's Wife instead of knitting. (Shocking, I know.)

Listening to: Enjoy the Silence ~ Depeche Mode, Taking Over Me ~ Evanescence

Olympia, WA

Alphamonkey has a bad habit of visiting state capitals and not posing with the capital buildings, but he did see the Farmers Market complete with a big bell:



...and the fish ladder.



Aside from getting Alphamonkey ready to go and finishing the other Monkeys I didn't get too much knitting done on this trip. But tomorrow is another travel day, so we'll see!

Hanging in Portland

I'm still on my whirlwind travel around the west coast, but today was spent in Portland, then on the train to Olympia.

My little sister was nice to show me around Portland and oblige me by being the main sock photographer. Our first stop (after coffee) was the PGE faces.



Next we saw these adorable otters.



And then we hopped on a bus over to Hawthorne St.



We even found a very appropriate store there for Alphamonkey:



And after the train ride Alpha has someone to look up to - pair #98



Pattern: Monkey by Cookie A.
Yarn: Trekking XXL
Finished: 11/23/07

Sorry Z, I was originally only going to be around for a bit this afternoon but then I ended up coming last night.

Alpha has Thanksgiving!

I was afraid perhaps my family would think I was a little crazy bring a tourist sock to Thanksgiving, but instead they got really into it and even suggested things for Alpha to do during his stay.

While we cooked the dinner Alpha just relaxed by the fire:



Finally dinner was ready and we all sat down at the table.



We had a lovely dinner and Alpha got to have some of the pumpkin pie he was trying to steal earlier.

Today Alpha and I are in Portland, OR and I'm going to show him the town.

I also got some pictures of my mom knitting socks:




Listening to: O'Sailor ~ Fiona Apple

Alphamonkey Goes to the Beach!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

A beachy interlude:



I'm writing from Arch Cape where Alphamonkey and I are spending Thanksgiving with my family.



Alphamonkey has been getting into trouble and stealing the pie.

And my room has this beautiful doorknob:



The first two photos were taken by my mom who is learning to knit socks now. I asked her to take a picture but she wanted to wait until she had more progress, so expect that one tomorrow.

Listening to: Muzzle ~ Smashing Pumpkins

Seattle

My first day here I went to breakfast, had coffee at the Panama Hotel (complete with a bit of knitting on the Monkey socks) and played at the park.

The park is one of my favorites and has some new stuff since I was there last.



I really liked these little chairs, and especially the way the light was hitting them.

And here's my current progress on the Monkeys. I'm about to leave for a long car trip so I'm sure more will get done then.



I probably won't post again til Friday but I'll write something tomorrow and save it til then.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Travel or It is still Tuesday in Seattle!

Today Alphamonkey joined me on a journey west. He was very excited (and slightly hopped up on caffeine) at the airport.



Yes, I have sunk to a new low and am blaming my frou-frou Starbucks beverage on a sock. I may need professional help.

After a loooong (6 hour) flight we are finally at our Seattle home where it is still Tuesday. I'm about ready to claim my bed back.




This does bring up an interesting question of what I will do about posting on Thursday and possibly Friday when I'll be without internet access. So here's a question - is it more cheating to post ahead or to write on the actual day and post it later?

Oh, wait, this is a knitting blog... I knit Alphamonkey's companion Monkey socks on the way here and got quite a bit done. I'm in the gusset with a predicted finish tomorrow.

Listening to: Warm Hands Cold Heart ~ 27

The Monkey Convention

Alphamonkey has been enjoying his stay in Boston and has been invited to many exciting events. The day today started with a bang as the first snowflakes were visible in the morning on his way to wait for me at work.

After work, however, he was excited to join the very exclusive First Annual Boston Monkey Convention.



While there he had the opportunity to meet another pair of Monkey socks-in-progress and some assorted other monkeys.

After the convention he experienced an intense sensation of personal growth.



Just as he thought it was about time to leave, he heard about this thing called "Thanksgiving" and "postal holiday" and he thought better of it. Instead he had the chance to travel across the US, visit the beach, and experience a real American Thanksgiving. He decided to stay on a few extra days.

Listening to: The Leaving Song Pt. 2 ~ A.F.I., Smile ~ Kitty F Band

Charlotte's Web and a Mystery!

I got needles today to start my Charlotte's Web shawl - a knitalong with most of FiberCult. Cathy is already almost done with hers, or maybe she is done by now. Amanda started already, I think, and Alexis and I are starting now.

Here's the yarn I chose:



I normally don't think of myself as a shawl person, but I couldn't resist the chance to knit it with a bunch of my best knitting friends. Plus I always wear this one Koigu shawl when I'm working at the yarn store...

The other project I'm planning on starting now is the November Mystery Sock from the Ravelry group Sock Knitters Anonymous. I don't know why, I always say I don't like surprises, but I think I'm going to give it a shot.

Listening to: Devil's Play ~ 27

On the way to 100!

Today I finished yet another pair of socks - this one is #97.



Pattern: Madder Ribbed Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks
Yarn: Fabel #671
Started: 10/30/07
Finished: 11/17/07

These were a quick and easy knit once I got motivated to actually knit on them! I used the rib from the pattern, but I did the heel and toe my own way - I find that I prefer a certain heel construction, which is possibly because I have crazy-high insteps. I really liked the yarn - it's similar to Regia, but maybe a little softer.

I finished them up tonight watching the first disc of The 10th Kingdom, which I haven't seen in a very long time.

Also, last night my cats were looking a bit like something out of The Shining sitting on my bed:



"Come play with us!"

Sometimes having matching cats is a little freaky.

I love the mail!

Today I got two amazing packages in the mail.

The first was a package of goodies from Kathleen in Japan. She contacted me via Ravelry to tell me how much she enjoys the podcast and asked if I wanted anything from Japan. Because I am always up for something new and exciting I said I would love to try Japanese sock yarn. She said it would be underwhelming, but it is certainly amusing!



First off all, Cattleya is a very interesting name. It's 50% wool and 50% nylon and looks like it will be a nice hard-wearing yarn, if not luxurious. Besides, what other chance would I have to knit with genuine Japanese sock yarn?

She also sent an assortment of other Japanese goodies:



The magenta wool at the top, which I'm planning to share with Cathy, is from Iceland where she lived before (what a world traveler!) and she also included a pattern book, a pretty little ceramic mouse cell phone charm since it's the year of the mouse. I would fear to put anything that beautiful and ceramic on my phone, so I'll probably hang it somewhere in my room. And some Japanese bath stuff. She sent me a Japanese coin with a hole in the middle too! (There is no way she could have known my obsession with coins with holes in them, but I am beyond thrilled.)

AND (I know, it's too much) she sent some edible goodies to share with the rest of the FiberCult!

A *huge* thank you to you, Kathleen.

Now, the second package waiting for me was a prize I won as part of Sockin' It to Maggie



I got some delicious chocolate, some beautiful stitch markers, and a skein of very pretty Fearless Fibers yarn. The yardage on it is really good so I'm thinking I should save it for some nice tall socks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ok, on to non-mail topics... I watched The Illusionist tonight while knitting on the Madder Rib socks and I loved it.

Also I got a Ravelry question about the method I use to knit my socks.

I almost always knit my socks two at once using the magic loop method. There is a really good tutorial on casting on (one of the tricky parts) on Sockbug here. The only thing to watch out for is patterns where the beginning of the round changes or there are non-paired increases and decreases that cause a decrease over the join. These aren't impossible to knit using the 2-at-once-ML method, but IMO they're more of a pain than it's worth.

I did a tutorial a while back on how to turn the heel which is here. Now get knitting and don't look back!

Listening to: Green Man ~ Type O Negative, What You Are ~ Audioslave

Zombies and sock knitting

Tonight I watched 28 Weeks Later and knit through the gusset of the Madder Ribbed Socks. The movie wasn't as good as the first, but sequels rarely are. It was decent.



This is one of those yarns that surprised me with how it knit up. I had no idea it was going to stripe from looking at the ball, if I had I would have matched the stripes up. But as it was I didn't know and when I did discover that there was a recognizable striping pattern I decided it would be ok unmatched. (I know, shocking.)

There really isn't much exciting going on the knitting front.

I'm thinking about which projects to take with me on my Thanksgiving trip - I probably need some plain-er socks to show my mom with, and I was thinking about taking the Baby Norgi since that's a good way to force myself to actually knit on it. That and one of the abandoned pairs of socks...

Teaching Socks

Earlier this year I promised my mom I would teach her to knit socks next time we were together. My mom taught me to knit as a child and although she's knit many beautiful and intricate baby sweaters, she's never knit socks or used a circular needle - in fact I don't think she's even knit with DPNs.

Well, I'll be seeing her over Thanksgiving next week! I've decided to teach her Magic Loop since that's my preferred method, but I probably won't show her two at once - at least not the first time. I was reminded last night when knitting on Alphamonkey how awkward I find DPNs. (No offense to all of you DPN lovers out there, it's just not my thing!)

Or maybe I should bring both options for my mom... thoughts?

Anyway, it gave me a good excuse to buy yarn, and to buy yarn that I probably wouldn't buy for myself.



I chose Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Ruby River because I thought a slightly heavier weight yarn would be good for time purposes. My mom likes red (one of my least favorite colors) and I'd been admiring this yarn for a while. I wouldn't want it myself, but even I could tell that it was a beautiful color! You'll have to take my word on this one because the above picture is the best I could get - with daylight savings time I never get home before dark to take photos.

In totally non-knitting news, stariPod lives! Yes, my blue iPod mini is alive again. I was very attached to it, but when the battery went I got a blue nano. However, stariPod was still sitting on my desk so when I heard about buying a new battery online I decided to give it a shot. Well it arrived today and it took me about a half hour from opening the package and reading through the instructions to having my iPod back together with the new battery. I think stariPod is back. :)

Whew!

As I was worrying about not being able to show you a pair of finished socks 3 days in a row, I was saved by my mail.

Alphamonkey arrived today!



Alphamonkey is part of the International Sock Knitalong and was previously in Kentucky with Katie. It arrived here with me today and I'll be knitting two repeats on the foot, taking some pictures of Alphamonkey around town, and then sending it off to the next knitter.

I also got my yarn from Ancient Threads:



No, your eyes are not deceiving you. Yes it is pink (and grey, and lavender-ish).

...and I got my Woolgirl Sock Club package!



And that is what I got in the mail today. I swear the mail deities save it all up and then rain down mail on one day.

MMotivation

How about a little motivation for finishing WIPs?



Yesterday at Knitsmiths I got mini M&Ms. (Yes, I do usually separate them by color, no I don't usually line them up with all the Ms facing the same way. Hey, I was taking a picture!) Did you notice a couple are M-less?

I started with this:



One M&M per round, a row for the finishing on each sock (kitchener and end weaving) and one row for blogging. That's how much a little bag of mini M&Ms can do. Well, that and a couple episodes of Dr. Who.



Pattern: Clemintine from Socktopia
Yarn: Dorchester Farms sock yarn
Needles: 3mm Addi
Started: ? June sometime
Finished: 11/12/07

Yay for pair #96!

Listening to: Heaven Beside You ~ Alice In Chains, Still Day Beneath the Sun ~ Opeth

Pair #95

I finished the Frankensocks!



I grafted the toe today at Knitsmiths and started weaving in ends, and I was still weaving in ends when I got home! I briefly contemplated knitting three socks and calling it a "pair" since they don't match anyway and would be fine in any combination, but I decided against it. Maybe when my knitting wishlist is a little less busy I'll make a second pair that can be mixed and matched.

Listening to: Love You To Death ~ Type O Negative

Socks in Progress

I get into spurts of starting and finishing things, and lately I've been working on many projects and thus not finishing them as quickly as I would otherwise.



I've been working on three sock projects lately - Clementine, Frankensock #2, and the Madder Rib socks.

Tonight I went to a pre-Thanksgiving party (think Thanksgiving but a bit early) and brought the latter two with me. Because, you know, if you go to a party (and a pre-party day of cooking) you need *two* sock projects to keep you busy. I did end up knitting on both.

The Frankensock is nearing an end, though, so pretty soon I'll have something finished to show for all this knitting.

Listening to: My Electricity ~ The Gathering

The Sock Stash Multiplies (AHHHH!)

Ok, I admit it. I've been buying yarn.

I feel kind of silly, my stash is ginormous and I joined the Sock Stash Elimination Campaign, and then I went and bought sock yarn.

It all started with some yarn that Catherine bought at Rhinebeck, Ancient Threads - I was desperate to get some but I hadn't seen the booth while I was there - and it's so beautiful and naturally dyed. Well we thought they didn't have a website, but it turns out they do! One of them contacted us to let us know and I went and bought some beautiful naturally dyed sock yarn. I can't wait to get it!

Then to continue with the madness, Blue Moon came out with the Raven colors. Now I've been not-so-patiently waiting for these since I first saw the banner about them on the front page because the yarn picture there (Rook-y, I'm pretty sure) was a yarn colorway that I had imagined a while back and was on a quest to find. Well, now it's out!

And then maybe, just maybe, I might have gotten some Buffy yarn from White Oak Studios.

I'm so bad...

Listening to: Behind Space '99 ~ In Flames

Plugging away...

So, how's NaBloPoMo going for you? It's hard for me to say if it's a good or bad thing just yet - I'm not finding it too difficult to blog every day since I *do* knit every day, I just hope it isn't too boring for the readers!

Today was actually somewhat eventful in my knitting world. I got my Ravelry T-shirt:



See, now you know what gauge is for Ravelry. ;)

I baked some banana bread:



And I knit on some neglected WIPs. Clementine and Madder Rib, to be exact. Here's my measly progress on Madder Rib:



Pan likes to help by inspecting the items being photographed.

The yarn, Fabel, was a gift from my fab SP jochibi.*

See, the thing is, I don't really like ribbing. (Yes, I know I just knit an entire sweater in 2x2 rib.) I think this pattern will turn out well in this yarn, but I don't enjoy the actual process of knitting the ribbing much. I often get the urge to cast something on, start it, and then leave it lying around in a sock bag on the top of my dresser stalled at the ribbing, like I did with these guys. Unfortunately for them, they're *entirely* ribbing. I started them in October but then got sidetracked with the Frankensocks and the Secret Spook socks.

* Funny thing... I was looking back at that post from when I first got the Fabel yarn and I realized I had written about buying thread to sew my Spork. Well today I actually did some of the sewing on Spork too! I need to locate the bag that contains the straps and clippies to hold the flap closed, but I had the bag itself with the shoulder strap and I sewed the ends of that strap together and sewed them to the sides of the bag so the Spork is now usable.



It's a little smaller than I thought it would be, which may be due to the felting - I didn't use the same yarn as specified in the pattern - and it's also a little more floppy than I'd like. Although, after the success of helping Rachel line her bag and my recent experiences with sewing on my knitted items, maybe I'll line it...

But, at any rate, it's a very good pattern and produces an adorable bag. It would also be really easy to size up or down, or to change the shape, just by doing some simple math.

Socks, York, and podcasting

The second Frankensock is progressing nicely:



Tonight I went over to Cathy's for a bit of FiberCult recording with a few of the girls. I knit on my Frankensock and I wore my York.

Yep, York made it's debut today, although I discovered about 5 minutes after getting to work that seaming with the Kureyon was not a good plan. (OK, so I should have known that.) I was taking the sweater off and broke the seaming yarn on the bottom of the left sleeve. Luckily when I went to record tonight Cathy had some Cascade 22o in a dark green that matches pretty well so I'm going to re-seam the lower arm and keep a bit of Cascade for any further emergencies.

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures since the lighting left a bit to be desired, but I should see many of my knitting friends on Saturday during the day for once, so I can coerce them into a little photo shoot then.

Knitting Together

I do a lot of my knitting socially. In fact, socializing is why I really got into knitting in the first place. I'm sure I've probably shared my 'getting into knitting' story previously, but the abbreviated version is that shortly after moving to Boston I wandered by (and into) a yarn shop and suddenly learned about the whole social knitting world - prior to that the epitome of social knitting was knitting a hat next to my friend knitting wristwarmers on the T-bane in Oslo. Suddenly there were knitting groups and knitting websites and I caught the bug fast.

I learned to knit when I was 6 or so and knit and ripped out a few strips of garter stitch. In high school I made two hats out of crazily variegated yarn, knit flat and seamed. I think one of them may still reside in my mom's garage.

I knit a scarf for my boyfriend in college. I knit a scarf for myself shortly after that and arrived in Norway with most of a scarf and had to ask my mom how to bind off long distance to Oregon. I went to the library and got a Norwegian pattern book, went to the yarn store and got my first circular needles and some wool, and successfully knit a ribbed hat in the round from a Norwegian pattern - my knitting has been rather adventurous from the start. I didn't like the hat so I gifted it to a classmate. I learned to crochet in Norway too.

I returned to the US and put down the knitting, although I think I did knit a hat for the boyfriend as well. And then I moved to Boston and all this craziness started. And now, well now it's history. I was asked on Monday by Guido about whether I think knitting is adversely affecting my life - does my knitting take anything away from my life?

I've thought about it and I don't think so. It helped me make some great friends here in Boston, gave me an obsession to... obsess over, and introduced me to a whole underground world. And I like it.

I guess I read less - maybe that's a bad thing. I did discover Librivox, however, thanks to knitting and Brenda, so it's enriched me in a literary fashion as well.

But this has gone *way* far from the direction I originally intended, which was to talk about my current group knitting projects - the Baby Norgi and Charlotte's Web which I was going to start tonight but I can't find my needles. Ah well, I guess I can save those for tomorrow.

So there's your philosophical and picture-less entry.

Listening to: Ending Theme ~ Pain of Salvation

May I present...

a whole sweater. York is done!



Yep, that's a bona fide ends-woven-in, zipper-sewn-down, seamed, all done and ready to wear sweater. (And it's trying to open the closet in a rather ghostly fashion!)

It wasn't so bad. I actually have a bit of experience with sewing so it was more of a task to convince myself to focus on the sewing than to actually sew it.

I also worked on Frankensock #2 today - it's a good way into the leg. I think I'll finish it by the end of the week.

Listening to: Soma ~ Smashing Pumpkins

Sewing is not my strong point...

Well, I didn't wear York today because I was still successfully avoiding getting it to 100% done by not finishing up the sewing. The knitting is 100% done, I just have to finish a few seams (some of that is done too) and sew in the zipper. I'm afraid of the zipper.

I worked a bit more on the Baby Norgi today and got past the turning round. Knitting a ~200 stitch item on 0s does not go very fast!

And I worked a bit on the 2nd Frankensock today too. It was a dabbling day in knitting.

I also picked up yarn for what I think shall be my one and only holiday project, but that's a secret.

Sweaters and socks

Today I went to a mini sweater workshop-slash-knitalong and started the Baby Norgi sweater - but more about that when there's something to show. At the moment I've just got a bit of what will be the hem facing. And I'm working on putting the final (sewing) touches on my York. If I stay motivated I'll probably wear it tomorrow and try to convince Rachel to take some pictures of it.

Tonight there's a Nor'easter, not much fun outside but perfect weather for knitting. I curled up on the couch with my last Netflix and finished Frankensock #1. Look at all the ends!



One of the downsides to manually striping socks. I did manage to get them all woven in, though, and I'm very happy with the finished product.



And I've cast on for the second sock already to try to avoid the dreaded SSS.

The yarns in sock #1 are (from top to bottom):
some striping yarn - Regia I believe - which was a gift from my downstream SP Mittenfarce
Lorna's in the Camouflage colorway from KBSX2 socks
some unidentified yarn from these Jaywalkers
Lorna's in Liberty from these guys
Trekking from my birthday socks
some Dorchester Farms yarn that I originally got at Vermont S&W in 2004 for an afghan square
STR in Carbon from these Monkeys
Lorna's in Socknitters Winter Sunset from these
Sunshine Yarns in The Cure
more of the crazy Regia
and more of the striping Jaywalker yarn

Whew!

I'm ba-aaaak!

Yep, here I am for the 2nd day of NaBloPoMo.

So, the knitting. An unintended side effect of this is that you'll get to see how I *actually* knit.

So, last night. I had some movies from Netflix hanging out so I grabbed the socks for Maggie and watched 28 Days Later.



The movie was much better than I expected, I thought it was going to be really bad which is why I never saw it before, but then a good friend recommended that I see it and it was one of the October movies for Fiberflix which gave me yet another reason.

When I'm on the computer listening to podcasts or music and such, I'm working on Clementine (PDF). I started these ages ago (June! EEP!) for the Knit Off and didn't complete them by the end so they languished while other deadline projects came and went.



And... apparently one can't even wander around blogland checking on one's friends without getting tagged for some meme. Catherine tagged her readers to post an old picture of themselves. This is the oldest one I have on my computer - from my freshman year of high school.



It was scanned from an apparently pretty beat up copy of the photo so it's a little dusty-looking.

Listening to: Today ~ Smashing Pumpkins, From Your Mouth ~ God Lives Underwater