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What in the hell is wrong with me – you know how sometimes the simplest things are the hardest?! Well, after thinking about my endless sleeve dilemma (and whether to cast on a small purse project), I decided to go ahead. I had a long subway trip this afternoon, an hour there and another hour back, and it’s far too muggy to schlep my Peasy – and it’s too unwieldy for subway knitting, anyway.
So I cast on a very simple hat – the Sockhead hat, by Kelly McClure. COULDN’T be easier. Cast on 144, do 4″ of 2×2 rib, then 9″ of stockinette. I have some very lovely Addi turbos, and a fun yarn, wham bam. I cast on, carefully counting and recounting to be sure, before I headed to the subway. Knit the first round of ribbi….wait a minute. Why do I have an extra 2 stitches? It should be knit 2 purl 2 then knit 2, to start the next round! Plow ahead, just have one little section of knit 4, who’ll notice. The long ribbing section is folded over for double warmth, I’ll just be sure to keep it at the back when I wear the hat.
But I got to my appointment a few minutes early, and sat down to recount the stitches. 154!! Ten too many! What the hell. Rip out the 4 rows I’d done, will cast on during the subway ride back.
So I cast on, and started knitting – like 20 stitches, or so. Realized I was knitting with the long tail. Tink those stitches, start again with the actual yarn that goes to the ball, LORI. Then I realized I was just knitting knitting knitting. Dang it! Ribbing! Ribbing! 2 x 2 ribbing! Tink those stitches.
And stop for a while. I know this kind of thing happens to you too. Don’t you hate it when it does?
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Maybe, in your life, you once had a relationship that was unsatisfying, but there wasn’t really anything wrong with the person. Everyone said Oh, s/he’s so great, such a nice person, funny, etc. I did once, and I agreed with them! Still, “perfect” as he seemed to be, it was not a good relationship for me. Around that time, I heard Joan Baez sing a song that included the line I used as this blog post title: a saint is hard to live with at home. It cracked me up, it felt very familiar and personally true, and obviously it stayed with me.
This line came to mind this morning when I saw the following article in the NYTimes:
we're perfect
Yep – that’s what it says. More city preschoolers are perfect. Test scores show. To me, that suggests that the tests are imperfect, or imperfect for assessing what they need to assess. Had I seen those data, I’d have written an article pointing out the problems with the test. But New Yorkers – you know how they are – instead say that we’re just perfect.
As a Texan, I really get that, and it’s one thing I find dear about New Yorkers. Well, dear and really irritating. Just like people get irritated (or worse) with Texans for their/our grandiose views of themselves (ourselves). NYers and Texans should either get over ourselves, or at least keep our mouths shut a little more often. 
And look at this – what do we see in my gigantic knitting bag next to my place on the couch:
peasy and mondo, mixing it up together in the bag
That’s my Peasy sweater (I’m knitting a sleeve right now) and my Mondo Cable Cardigan (also on a sleeve). Two sweaters! But lost in sleeveland, the seemingly endless land of stockinette tubes. Yesterday I did a little Peasy sleeve knitting, then a little Mondo sleeve knitting, then back to Peasy. It didn’t feel like too much of a break, switching to the other. I don’t have a purse knitting project going right now, and I keep thinking I ought to cast on something small and quickly-finishable, but then I know I’d just do that instead of sleeves, and the sleeve-knitting elf hasn’t found my apartment yet so if it’s going to be done, I’ll have to do it.
Everything there is to do in this world has a bit that’s less fun than the others. I read an article by Jane Patrick in one of the first issues of Handwoven, where she talked about how much she hated sleying the reed (I think that was the detail). Then she realized that’s a necessary task, she’s always going to have to do it when she weaves, so she tried to reorient herself to the idea. That happened to me when I took my intro stats course as an undergrad – at first I hated it, but I realized it would be my essential tool so I found another way to think about it, and now I adore stats. So my mission is to find another way to conceptualize the endlessness of sleeves.
Happy Thursday, y’all.
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Kelly and my other sweater-knitting friends: I’m in. I’m totally in. I get it. It’s addictive. Knitting sweaters = f.u.n. Want to see where I am with Peasy?
look at that! I'm knitting a sweater!!
this photo has the most accurate color - green pea soup
the lacy front panels
Yeah. I’ll be doing this a lot more. And if you haven’t tried knitting with it yet, Rowan Felted Tweed is AMAZING. I’m just sayin.
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I don’t know if you’re like this, but I have a very itchy mouse-finger. When I see yarn or tools or patterns I like, click! click! click! Right into the electronic shopping cart. Or the Ravelry queue. More, more, MORE! About a year ago, I realized that I could stem the spending tide by putting things in electronic shopping carts and clicking “save” instead of “check out.” That seemed to do the trick, somehow; it satisfied that momentary craving, and after a while, I didn’t really need whatever it was I’d put in the shopping cart. My Amazon account is like that too.
Now, though, now that I’m in the period between having a stable income and figuring out how to have at least enough of an income, it has a new urgency. Frugal is my new watchword, at least in this interim period.
So last night I went “shopping” in my ravelry account. I looked at the excesses in my queue (though I’m not as bad as some! one raveler has 6,182 projects queued and 20,141 things faved. I’m going to have to unfriend her because when I look at my friends activity page, it’s always flooded by her and we don’t have the same taste). Anyway – long diversion there, sorry – I looked at my 183-item queue and put some real order in it. After I finish the projects on the needles, what do I really want to knit? Really?
I have 10 projects ready to go, matched with yarn that’s already in my stash:
- Austin Hoodie, knit with my porcelain tosh merino light
- Sockhead hat, knit with some cool sock yarn my youngest daughter gave me for mother’s day
- A Noro striped scarf, using some really beautiful and soft Noro I stashed
- Inaugural Sweater, with yarn I bought specifically for it
- and A Very Braidy Cowl, with yarn I got from Kelly when she was destashing
1. madelinetosh, tosh merino light (colorway: porcelain), 2. Regia Galaxy – Jupiter, 3. Noro Silk Garden, colorway 267, 4. Noro Silk Garden, colorway 275, 5. Valley Sheffield, 6. crystal palace merino5 color 9454
And 5 more ready to go after those. There’s something that feels so good about imposing constraints, limits, order.
See? No more wedding talk.
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I just feel the need to say this – this subject must be threatening to my identity or something – but I’m very good at statistics. I can do a discriminant function analysis, structural equation modeling, whatever. But knitting math just makes my head hurt. Since I’ve written about this before, and you left such generous comments, I do know that I’m not alone; for some of us, the whole enterprise is just counterintuitive. I knit a swatch and have too many stitches per inch….do I use a smaller needle or a larger one? Even though I have already been through this, I still don’t know.
So after redoing my Peasy swatch in the wrong direction, I redid it last night in the right direction. The pattern gauge is 22 st and 30 rows = 4 inches. Going up a needle size, I get 21.5 st and 30 rows = 4 inches. Pretty dang good!
My problem is that I can’t figure out what that 1/2 a stitch difference is going to mean. In the gracious spirit of Amy Herzog’s Fit to Flatter series, last night I decided to just suck it up and take my real measurements, disregarding what the actual numbers were and just looking carefully at the relationships between them. Then I compared them to the Peasy pattern to see what size I really need to knit. Well, I’m exactly on the large. Exactly.
So does this 1/2 stitch difference mean the sweater will be ever-so-slightly larger or ever-so-slightly smaller? If it’s larger, that’s wonderful! I sit here and try to puzzle my through it and just get a headache.
note to self: you can do structural equation modeling! you are not stupid!
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Knitters:
Casting on for the 4th time. GRRRR. The wedding shawl is knit from both ends, and then grafted together. I’ve finished the bulk of it – probably 90% – and now I just have to cast on and knit the smallish border on the other end (it’s a 95 st cast-on, and the pattern repeat is only 33 rows). So I sat down last night at the beginning of a movie, cast on (which is a little bit of a pain because you have to double the yarn for the cast on and then drop one strand when you start knitting). So I was casting on, long tail, and hadn’t left enough yarn. I made it to 86 sts. No biggie.
at least this section I'm knitting (frogging) doesn't have nupps!
Start over, get the whole thing cast on, great. Knit knit knit, made it 8 rows in when I realized I was knitting the wrong part of the pattern. Frog frog frog. Cast on. Knit knit knit, something had gone so terribly wrong somewhere and there was nothing to do but cast on again. By the time the movie was over, I’d cast on again and I was 9 rows into the pattern. Go to sleep and start fresh in the morning.
This morning I was knitting the 10th row…hallelujah, finally getting somewhere!…when I realized the row was only 91 sts. I’d gotten to the end of the row, every pattern repeat absolutely perfect, but I didn’t have those 4 sts I should’ve had before the garter border in the last 5 sts. Somehow, I had missed that when I’d knit the previous rows.
So I just frogged it again. I think I’m going to put it aside and make some blueberry bars for my dear husband, and then pick it up again. I’m using KnitPicks harmony circulars from the interchangeable set, and the metal end of the tips, where it joins the cable, is starting to change and make things difficult. It’s not shiny like it was, it’s kind of dull and the stitches don’t slide, which makes the knitting hard.
Knitting is fun! I love knitting! Knitting is my passion! I love knitting! Knitting is fun! (does that sound like I’m trying to convince myself? )
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I know - how many times is she going to write about those socks?! For heaven’s sake. Believe me, I understand. I think I’m just so fascinated by the pattern and this yarn. Plus, of course, I had to start over on the sock after getting through the heel flap so I’ve kind of been at this for a while. Turns out I didn’t get one sock out of one skein; I got to the toe decreases and ran flat out. But luckily I had a brown yarn in my stash that was a perfect blend. Lookie!
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If I haven’t said this lately: Ravelry is awesome. Right? Not only are most of the people wonderful, the resource itself is amazing. I find a pattern I like, then I look at the photos and project notes of everyone who made it – look for people my size and shape, how does it look on them? See how it looks made with a variety of different yarns – and with the yarn I’m considering. I learn about the modifications people made to it, the problems they ran into and how they got out of them. Just amazing. How did we ever knit before Ravelry? I guess we were just all alone and knitting in the dark. Much less fun.
So, one of my ravelry friends (hi Margaret!) gave me some sock knitting tips for my Wowie Zowie sock since she’s knitting them too (and using the same yarn, but a different colorway, so very lucky for me), and tonight I’m going to cast on again with the same yarn. I was making new-knitter mistakes, misunderstanding just how much yarn 8 extra stitches per row can consume, and underestimating how much yarn my few rows of ribbing were taking up. It’s a close fit, anyway; the pattern uses 460 yards per sock, and the balls contain 480 yards. Not a lot of room for adding to the pattern. In addition to my newbie errors, I’d somehow missed the close fit which would’ve made me much more cautious with my modifications. I’ll also try to lighten up a bit and not knit so tightly, for heaven’s sake.
I’m thrilled! I particularly loved that yarn with that pattern, and was entirely smitten with the interaction between pattern and color changes. In fact, I was thinking about how much I’d like to wear them with a skirt so they’d be visible to everyone. Show them off a little. Feel happy when people say “hey, where did you get those amazing socks!” because I expect people would actually ask me. That kind of thing happens to me.
come back to me, lover sock....
Isn’t it great when you’re in love with the things you’re knitting?
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Since I finished Marnie’s Minkeys, I need another small project on the needles. Right? Right? You always need a small project on the needles, can I get a yeah sistah? At the top of my Ravelry queue – small project edition – was Anne Campbell’s Circle Socks (public rav link here), which I’d decided to knit with my colorful balls of Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett. (I have no idea how to say any of those words except design and line, and maybe Regia.)
Last night I cast on and it was such fun knitting, I just kept saying “Just let me finish this needle” “After this row I’ll be ready for bed” “Let me finish this pattern repeat.” YOU know how that goes.
circle socks - incredibly fun to knit, and fast!
I added a short section of ribbing at the top, just because I always like ribbing on my socks. Want to see that cool section up close?
whoa. that is REALLY cool.
I’ve decided to name this pair of socks Wowie Zowie, for the most obvious of reasons.
I hope to get something done today besides knitting. Wait. Do I really?! Or is that just what we say because we know we’re supposed to do something besides knitting. I think that’s it – I would actually love nothing more than to sit in my cozy little spot, with endless cups of mint tea, good movies on Netflix, and to knit the whole day, until it’s time for sleep again. Too bad I need sleep.
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I’ve written before about knitting in the subway – it has been an important part of my knitting time, time I get several rows done on whatever socks are on my needles. A few rows en route to work in the mornings, and a few on the way home. I usually get a seat in the morning, since I go to work so early, but coming home is another story – I usually have to stand. As long as I have a little space in front of me, I’ll haul out the needles and squeeze out a few rows. I don’t need to be near a pole, because I’ve developed my subway legs.
knitting the 2nd minkey
So last night, after our lovely day of celebrating my husband for Father’s Day, I had to head down to the Wall Street area to have dinner with an author whose work was partly responsible for my becoming a social psychologist. There were still crowds of tourists – many in town for the day celebrating their own husbands and dads, from the look and sound of it. I took my place, standing in the middle of the car, and pulled out my knitting. Like I do. A couple of stops later, much of the crowd exited the train, and a new crowd entered. An older woman with very obvious false teeth sat down facing me, and started grinning and chattering about the sock I was knitting. She has a friend back home who makes socks, she couldn’t wait to tell her about seeing me standing up knitting something with all those stripes (self-striping yarn, ma’am), and all the holes (it’s lace, ma’am), on all those needles (we call them double-pointed needles, ma’am).
Her warm friendliness seemed to open the door for conversation with me about what I was doing, because all of a sudden everyone around me started asking questions, wanting to see what I was making – how do you do that standing up? It was nice, and I enjoyed telling people all about it. That crowd left, and I took a seat.
The man I was sitting next to just kept up the conversation. He was curious about using 4 needles – oh, that’s how you knit in a circle! He realized I was knitting a sock and asked how I made it smaller to get to the toe. Oh, that makes sense! It made me laugh, and remember the days when my kids were young, and I used to take my spinning wheel to their classrooms for a demonstration of spinning – usually during the “let’s learn about the farm” week in the spring. The girls always wanted to touch the wool to their cheeks, and they asked where Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger. The boys just wanted to know how the wheel worked.
I guess those tendencies remain even in adults. It made me very happy, the whole thing.
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Apologies to Einstein – this is about relative speed of the knitterly kind. I’m not one of those cool speed knitters. I guess I’d like to be….or rather, I’d like to be able to be one of those cool speed knitters when I hit long patches of stockinette, or something. But I do love the process and can get into a bit of a hypnotic trance watching my fingers. So I don’t mind my own knitting speed, even if it’s not Speedy Gonzales.
I can put in hours of knitting on the wedding shawl and have just a bit of growth to show for it, or I can put in the same amount of time and have more than half a sock, to wit:
monkey see
Granted, since this was the first sock pattern I ever knit, and since I’ve knit four other pairs using this pattern, I can do it in my sleep by now. But the thicker yarn just obviously makes things go faster, and zoom zoom zoom I’ve turned the heel and picked up the gusset stitches. Go, Lori, go!
Cute, right Marnie?
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Some people are much worse than me, in terms of having a lot of works in progress. I hear campfire tales about lone knitters who work on one thing at a time….urban myths? I don’t know. I don’t personally know anyone like that. It’s been such a long time since I had a finished object to post, because (a) I don’t get much time to knit, (b) the projects I’m working on are either large or cobweb lace, and (c) my subway knitting project was not as quick as a pair of socks, but was……..
announcing…….
my Baktus scarf!
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- baktus
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- wearing the baktus scarf
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- and again…this way!
It was a lot of fun to knit, even though Noro Silk Garden Sock isn’t at all nice to work with. When I’m knitting in the subway, I have my briefcase bag slung over one shoulder, and a large bag hung on my other shoulder holding my laptop, odds and ends, and my knitting. This was unwieldy, since I had a cake of Noro and a skein of KnitPicks Essentials just tossed in the bag. As I went back and forth, switching colors, they’d get all wound around each other, and the other junk in the bag, and it was a hot mess.
So it certainly took me long enough, but at last I have some knitting to post on this “knitting blog.” Baktus is very warm and cozy, and I know I’ll enjoy wearing it when winter comes around again.
Project notes:
- my rav page
- US 4/0 — 1.25mm
- Knit Picks Essential Kettle Dyed
- Noro Silk Garden Sock
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To centralize my knitting, I’ve created FO galleries by year. Sure, you can just see them as they appear on this blog, or on my ravelry project page (friend me, I’m LoriNY), or on the individual pages in my ravelry notebook (FO2008, FO2009, FO2010). Or you can just pick a subtab, above, and do a quick scroll-through for a blast of color, and to see the evolution of a knitter.
And if I haven’t said so lately, I’m very glad you’re here.
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