Monday, January 30, 2012

When last we spoke.

Okay, I know it's been a while since I posted anything but I am no Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. So the January sweater is going well (although there's no way it'll be done in January) and I've even made some headway on Christmas 2012.
This weekend I went to one of the yarn stores in town and bought some of what I'll need for this endeavor. I started on Lauren's gift, did a swatch and everything, even got gauge on the first try (I should have known that it was all going too smoothly). Did a few inches on the project and it was about the size of two Laurens. Frogged it, cast on again (fewer stitches this time), worked a few inches and found that I had twisted the stitches when joining them. Frogged it, cast on again, joined neatly in the round, worked a few inches when I discovered I had dropped a stitch a few rounds back and my whole pattern was now skewed. Frogged it, did not cast on again. I'm waiting until the sight of the heap of yarn does not make me want to defenestrate the whole bloody thing (I learned a new word this weekend, "defenestrate". It means "to throw through or out a window").
So instead I cast on my dad's gift. I have doubts that he'll ever read this so I'm not worried about telling you that I'm making him socks. My dad is a musician, piano player to be precise, so he spends a lot of time in slacks and ties, playing restaurants, bars, clubs, weddings, festivals, you name it. I figured he could use a nice pair of dress socks so that's what I've begun. Nice dark navy color, some ribbing at the top and then stockinette the rest of the way through, nothing fancy. I know men can be tricky when it comes to anything that could be considered "girly" like cables or any kind of fancy stitch pattern so I'm going to keep it basic.
I know that's not much headway on Christmas 2012, but that I started at all is a mini miracle in of itself. Wish me luck!

Friday, January 27, 2012

The spring sweater in January

Okay, so I've finally figured out how to do pictures on this thing. Here is the long awaited January sweater.
I know, it's rather unimpressive at this point, but hey, it's only my second attempt at doing a sweater ever. It's the February Lady Sweater by Pamela Wynne (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/february-lady-sweater) only adapted to be a little less swingy, with full sleeves, and worked in Old Shale instead of Gull Lace.
(yeah I know the picture's sideways, but I can't figure out how to fix it. Judge not!)

I really wanted to do the Gull Lace pattern but I have a ridiculously hard time going directly from a yarn over and into a slip, slip, knit. I'm sure I'll learn how to do it right some day, but for now I'll just stick to a pattern that I have memorized. Plus I have kind of a thing for Old Shale anyway. I like the natural little scallops it makes at the castoff edge.

Okay, so Christmas 2012. I haven't started yet. Mostly because I'm lazy but partially because I haven't fully decided what to make people yet. I have things picked out for all of my sisters, have the yarn and everything, but I'm torn. I have two little sisters, Lauren and Sarah (one older as well, Adaira, but she doesn't count in this story). Lauren's 14 and Sarah is... I want to say 10 but I have a feeling that two minutes after this is posted I'll get an angry call from someone about not knowing how old my own sister is. Hey, I'm only human.

Anyway, Lauren has always been really responsible and takes good care of her things so I'm not worried about making her something nice, but Sarah is... Well she's 10 (probably). She doesn't really understand that certain things need to be handled really carefully. I can just imagine me knitting her gift out of Pima Cotton/Silk, spending hours and hours making sure it's just right, and bestowing it upon her making sure to tell her a million times; "Do NOT put this in the washer or dryer Sarah Juanita. Have your mom or Lauren take care of washing it, do NOT throw it in with the rest of your laundry, it will be ruined." And then getting a call two weeks later from someone saying: "Sarah mixed it in with the rest of her laundry and it just got thrown in to the washer. Then the dryer. Now it's ruined. Lauren still has her beautiful gift so now Sarah feels left out. Can you make her another one?"

I bet you money that some time shortly after Christmas I will have a very angry blog post retelling that exact story but in the present tense.

So here's my dilemma, knit her something out of nice material anyway even though it will probably be destroyed? Or knit her the same thing, but with a fiber that's a bit more hardy? And superwash. I would just do the later, but Sarah is smart and she knows the expensive stuff from the... Less expensive stuff and I would never hear the end of it. "You love Lauren more, her gift is nicer! Why didn't I get a nice gift?" Thoughts to how I should handle it?

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. Knit on, my lovelies.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Christmas 2012

The previously destroyed sweater is flying off the needles now. I now know that on the last try I had about 150 extra stitches (I maintain that they magically appeared and that it's no fault of my own) and so every row felt like it was a million miles long. I could watch Jurassic Park and only have done a row and a half. That makes for a cranky Alexis, just ask Boyfriend. Now it's just smooth sailing and I'm wicked excited to have a spring cardigan that will be finished just in time for the dead of winter... I may not have thought this through.
Inadequate protection from clothing aside, in my last post I mentioned something about my Christmas 2012 mission. I am going to knit one thing for everyone important in my life, to all be ready by Christmas of 2012. As I write this, I realize that I'm about to embark on the highly frustrating and potentially impossible. All of my family, all of Boyfriend's family, all friends of the family, and all my friends. Cheese and rice. Just did a final count and that's about 30 people (many socks and hats will be had by all). Hence the reason I'm starting in January. I wanted to start earlier but I'm still lazy. Honestly, how early in a project can you fall behind?
Okay, I'll keep you posted and put up pictures of the spring sweater as soon as I figure out how to put pictures on this thing.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Just a wee note.

So I spent most of last evening frogging (ripping out) the entirety of a sweater that I was about half way done with when I noticed that I had done the shoulder increases wrong and one front panel had 22 stitches while the other had about 50. I knew something had gone terribly wrong. So, I slid it from the needles, re-wound the wool, and started again. A process that should have made me crazy, but really just made me thankful that yarn is reusable and I didn't have to go out and buy four more skeins. I try to enjoy the little things.
Now I'm off to take advantage of Lane Community College's free printing and make a copy of all the patterns I will need for Christmas 2012. I'll explain that endeavor in the next one.

Happy Monday!

Friday, January 20, 2012

My Hero

To many knitters out there, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is a Goddess among us. She has this way with wool and words that boggles the mind and is my personal hero. When I was ashamed to knit in public for fear of ridicule I just thought; WWSPMD and decided that I didn't care what judgmental non-knitters thought (unless of course they were thinking that my knitting was awe-inspiring and that they wanted to be just like me).
Now for those of you who have no idea who she is, for God's sake, Google. She has a blog at www.yarnharlot.ca that will have you in stitches (pun totally intended). She also has a litany of books out there that are magnificent. I know I sound like a pusher right now, but she's awesome, Google her right now. I'll wait...
The point of all this background is to tell you a sad, sad story. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is my hero. I've been reading her for about a year now and I check her blog almost religiously, which is why I'm even more ashamed that this happened.
I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon; a nice big city that Boyfriend and I refer to lovingly as "The Hipster Mecca". I now go to college in a city called Eugene. It's about a hundred miles away from P-town and is a seemingly endless city of hippies (not an insult, I promise). I go back to the Portland-metro area every few weekends to visit my family and raid my mom's pantry for canned goods (the life of an unemployed college student).
Now one weekend back in the summer I was sitting at my mom's computer checking Yarn Harlot and I came across the name of a knitting event that SPM had been mentioning for months. "Sock Summit". I had seen it before but not paying attention and thinking the event would be too far away for me to visit, I never checked it out. I was envious for those who lived near the venue though as it was shaping up to be the biggest sock knitting event in all of history. Something was gnawing on the edge of my brain though and I couldn't figure it out. The name sounded so awfully familiar but I just couldn't place it.
Later that week, I was back in Eugene and making dinner one night and Connor asked me if I would pour him a glass of wine to have with his. That's when it hit me like a sucker punch to the temple.
Now a few months before all of this, Boyfriend and I had gone to a wine/beer tasting event with Connor's brother Cassian and his then-fiancee (now wife) Heather at the Portland Expo Center. There are always banners around the PEC about the next shows that are coming through and I distinctly remember Boyfriend saying to me at one point: "Hey, 'Sock Summit', that sounds right up your alley." But I was distracted by all the colorful wines and displays that I just filed it away under "Google later". I never did.
Fast forward. I raced to my laptop praying that either it wasn't the same Sock Summit or that I hadn't yet missed it. It was. I had. Arguably the biggest Knitting event in all of Oregon's history was in my own back yard and I missed it because I was too lazy to Google. Many swearwords were said that night. I shall forever curse myself as I had the chance to meet my idol and be (if only for a weekend) surrounded by people just like me. I now immediately look-up every knitting event that Stephanie Pearl-McPhee names in her blog. Never again.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

I am the worst.

Alright, I admit that I very well might be the worst blogger to ever exist. Every time I get online I think to myself: "I should post something today!" but then I get distracted with Facebook and Ravelry and I end up saying: "Well it's not like anyone is really going to be reading this anyway..." and I get down on myself and end up watching Jurassic Park and knitting mittens (it's pretty sad how often this ends up happening).
Anyway, the last time we chatted I believe I was in Mexico. That was about two weeks ago. Again, I apologize. I'd like to say that I've been busy with class and booming social life, but honestly, I'm just lazy. I'm only taking nine credits this term and they're not even hard credits! I think I just picked the classes I'm taking now because I've had all these teachers in terms past and I know all of them will let me knit during lecture.
So, I've left Mexico and I am back in Eugene. Home sweet home, right? No. I miss Mexico. There, the sun shone, the days were incredibly long, and I didn't have anything to do but walk about, see the sights, and knit! Now that's a perfect world. Here in Eugene it's rainy and grey and bitterly cold (but naturally not cold enough for snow and therefore canceled class). One thing that's good about the cold weather is that it has inspired me to knit all the things! For myself and others. I've been thinking about making friends on campus by mass producing mittens and handing them out during my lunch break. I have a feeling that more people would run than accept.
Lately my knitting has consisted of little things. A hat so that my ears don't freeze off while I'm driving (my car has no heat), mittens so that my tiny knitter fingers don't fall off as I walk through campus, so on and so forth. Nothing especially exciting on the needles right now which is driving me crazy. So much so that I just spent the last hour in the library printing out every sweater pattern on Ravelry that appealed to me. I have about 40 pages stacked in front of me and I'm starting to get funny looks...
I would really love to post more but my next class starts in four minutes and my class is across campus and up a giant hill. I'll post again and sooner and give more details about my future knits.