Small Victories

*squees, dances* I got a package in the mail this morning, and it had yarn in it!



Yes, the Lisa Souza sock yarn in the "Violet's Pink Ribbon" colourway arrived this morning and I'm in love. The colours are vibrant and gorgeous, and it's soooooo soft. I just couldn't stop touching it or rubbing it against my cheek and revelling in its softness. It's seriously yummy stuff.

Of course it only makes me want to finish all the other projects in the queue ahead of it even faster, and luckily there's some progress on those fronts. I think I've found a rib pattern that would suit the Blood & Bruises socks. Of course it likely won't be too obvious as the colourway will hide some of the texture, but if it's not too eye-hurty I might do it anyway, simply for my own personal giggles.

As for the socks already on the needles, last night after a few concentrated hours of knitting I turned the heel on Dad's second sock, and am now starting on the leg.



It was a nice accomplishment, too, as yesterday was a real bitch of a day, and I was worn out, somewhat pissed off, not feeling well and probably hormonal, just to make things that much more fun. And then today, while commuting around before work, I managed to start the cuff on the Times Squared socks. So far I've only got about a half and inch of 2x2 ribbing on each, but there's a certain comfort to knowing that you're working the cuff, and have entered the home stretch. Hopefully finishing those won't take long.

It'll be about time, too, for me to have a new pair of socks, as I really have to go through my stash and get rid of some. Mainly some of the first ones I knit, which at the time I thought fit fine, but as I've refined my tehnique and gained experience in sock knitting, I've come to realize that some of them really don't fit that well. There's one pair that I wore the other day that I couldn't keep up for more than about 5 minutes, and there are about 3 pairs I've already moved to the "donate" pile, as I only wore and washed them a couple times before I decided that they really were too small, but didn't feel like ripping them out, even when that would only really involve making the foot a little longer. A lot of the earlier ones are also looking somewhat the worse for wear; no holes as yet, but more the heels felting or pilling really badly. They're pretty sorry-looking and even though they might fit someone else, I wouldn't want to donate something that looked as awful as these things do.

Of course this will also answer my mother when she says, upon seeing me knitting another sock, "More socks? Don't you have enough socks?"

The answer, obviously, is "No, mother. You can never have enough hand-knit socks."

I'll probably have to knit her some, just so she can see for herself. ;)

As for knitting other than socks? I had a brainwave tonight (just before I, um...announced we were closing in five minutes an hour before we actually closed *facepalm*), and have an idea for another project. This would be for whenever I finish the afghan and the Swallowtail Shawl, and a couple scarves and...

I need to learn to function without sleep so I can knit. Can't someone invent some kind of regeneration thing like the Borg use (circa Star Trek: The Next Generation) at least?

Holiday Wrap-Up

Well, Christmas is over and it's official: I didn't get Dad's socks done in time. Oh well. He doesn't mind, so I don't, really. At least I've got most of the way up the leg on one and finished the toe on the other, and now I can actually work on them at home in front of him, so it shouldn't take too long.

Hopefully it won't, too, as I still have the yarn I bought in Toronto to dive into and start knitting with. First up, the Blood and Bruises socks, for reasons too geeky to mention. I also have Lisa Souza yarn on the way; just got the email the other day.

Also, as of December 19th--in only four days--knitters around the world were able to double the amount raised for Knitters Without Borders. That's over $120,000 in four days, for a total of (at elast count) $248,000! (though suddenly it strikes me to wonder if that's in Canadian $$ or American--or a combination of both because people reported without stating which it was). And that's what it was up to by the emails Stephanie had received on the 19th, who knows where it is now. Go knitters!

The afghan continues to be seamed, and I'd post a photo if I wasn't feeling lazy/sick of looking at it at the moment. Must work on it over the weekend.

I'm also coming down with a cold, thanks to no sleep over Christmas, and one of my aunts being ill, so off I go to medicate!

Well, it's less than 36 hours before the presents get opened, and...I'm pretty much screwed. Grandma's Feather and Fan socks are finished at least, but not even the first sock of my Dad's pair are done yet. About a week ago I was going to blog about how I was nearly done the second of my grandmother's socks, so at least I'd have another pair of needles to start my Dad's second sock and wasn't too worried.

At least that's what I was planning before I went to hold the second Grandma sock up against the first to see how much longer the cuff needed to be and saw that the foot wasn't the same length.

By about half an inch.

Arrrrgh.

Needless to say I spent the fifteen minutes remaining before my shift started ripping back to just before I started the heel. So yup, it's pretty much confirmed now that dad's getting...well, hopefully one completed sock and the toe of the other in his stocking. At least that's not the main gift for him.

At the moment, Christmas knitting is all I'm working on, and all I've been for the last few weeks. For Grandma's socks, I'm using some Regia Canadian Colours that I had in my stash. Can't remember the number and the ball band is long gone, but it's a light blue/light yellow-green/dark blue/dark teal-ish colourway. They knit up pretty fast, considering the amount of time I've been able to devote to them, and the feather and fan pattern is a good one to stave off boredom.

For Dad's socks, I'm doing a plain worksock: off-white toes, heels and cuff, tweedy charcoal grey for the foot and leg, in a 4x2 rib. No need for really fancy work as I'm not sure he'd wear it if I did. Serviceable socks seemed a better idea, particularly as he'll ask for worksocks on his Christmas list, something my brother and I always tease him about.

Other than those, I'm trying to out together the afghan created by the girls in my knitting group at the library. Of course I had to take the complicated way of doing it (creating black sashing inbetween the squares, like a quilt), so it's going slowly.

Somehow over the last couple years I've always ended up doing Christmas knitting, though every year I've thought that I wouldn't. I'm not one of those people that has to make a knitted gift for everyone--particularly not one for everyone for the same holiday. I don't get the whole "I have to make something for everyone!" mentality, as I know that not everyone will want or appreciate a knitted item for Christmas; but then I think I can understand it if your family is the sort to compare gifts and keep score in the "they-got-something-handmade-so-why-didn't-I?" kind of way, in which case the pressure on the knitter is coming more from without than within.

My family isn't like that, and I usually try to focus more on what's the perfect thing for each person, rather than money value or handmade-versus-bought (though I try and spend approximately the same on my main family members).

Anyway, as I said I've decided I wasn't going to knit anything for anyone in the last couple years, but then Mom asks or grandma keeps hinting that she wants socks, or I decide "hey, it might be nice to amke this small thing for ____" and there you have it: Christmas knitting.

And speaking of giving, for those that don't listen to the podcast, Miss Violet of Lime and Violet is having some medical problems, which she can't even get diagnosed until she's found $1000 to pay for the testing. To help, Lisa Souza has created a special colourway called "Violet's Pink Ribbon", with part of the proceeds going to Miss Vi's medical fund. Any money raised over the amount needed will be donated to a related charity of Miss Vi's choosing.

Or to spread some more Christmas cheer, the Knitters Without Borders campaign, hosted by the Yarn Harlot, is back in full swing as well. I'm hoping to contribute this time, once the next credit card billing period comes along.

So if you have any disposable cash left, make one more gift, either to the ones I've mentioned or a charity of your choosing. After all, knitters know the joy of giving, with only warm fuzzies as the reward.

You Learn Something New Every Day

...like the fact that while I've been doing short-row heels since January, I apparently do them wrong. Or at the very least, half-assed.

This is likely because back in January when I was working on my second pair of socks using the short row heel, I was at my best friend Amanda's house in Pickering for New Years and had forgotten to bring the book I had with instructions for short-row heels, so I just did it from my (faulty) memory. The 6 litres of Pepsi I'd drank that weekend during our 24 Season 1 marathon (and, for that matter, the marathon itself, no matter that I'd seen the season before) may have had something to do with it too. It seemed to work and looked fairly good, if a little messier than other people's short-row heels, so I've done it that way since.

However, thanks to the tutorial on Cosmicpluto Knits last week, I discovered that I a) have been wrapping my stitches half-assedly (I would slip the stitch to be wrapped, then bring the yarn to the front, slip back and then bring the yarn between the stitches ready to work the next stitch) and b) have been doing the second half of the heel half-assedly, as I wasn't double-wrapping stitches. I'm already past the heel on both the Boring Socks of Doom, so I can't do the non-half-assed version any time soon, but will have to try it with my next pair and see what it looks like.

Speaking of the Boring Socks of Doom, I may be cursing myself here, but they seem to be almost done. I think if I can get another inch or two on the cuff of both of them, I can call it quits, and Thank God for it. Then I can cast on something more interesting, in time to take with me as travel knitting for th Creative Sewing and Needlework Festival this weekend.

Speaking of CSNF (I'll be there on Sunday, thanks to work scheduling, and dammit, there better be Koigu and Trekking left when I get there!), dammit is there some kind of T-pin embargo on this city or something? I need T-pins so I can block out the lacy sampler scarf, which only has about 6 or 7 inches of edging to go (I'll be able to finish that tonight, really, as each edging repeat is about 1 inch long and it's a pretty quick knit). I want to wear the scarf to CSNF this weekend.

But could I find T-pins in the THREE stores I tried? No! Fabricland? Out. Wal-Mart? Out. Husquvaarna (sic?) sewing store near work? Out. And with work I don't have time to go looking for them elsewhere in town until Saturday afternoon, by which time it'll be about 16 hours before I want to wear the damn thing. I won't even have time to hop off the bus near the yarn store tomorrow, run in, grab them (if they have them in the first place) and get out to the bus, as I have to commute from one branch to another on my lunch hour. If I got up very early on Friday, I could *maybe* have time to haul ass out to the other Wal-Mart in town, but I would then be very grumpy the rest of the day because from now until the evening of Sunday, I'm going to need all the sleep I can get.

Considering the scarf is made of laceweight yarn and very open and airy, there's a chance it might be dry before I need it, but it's cutting it awfully close. Arrgh.

I have bunch of photos to post, but they'll have to wait for next time as they're at home and I'm at work with about 5 minutes to go before I have to be on duty. So next time: photos, I promise! Hopefully I'll get them up before Sunday as I'd like to do some photoblogging about my trip into T.O. (aka "Yarnapalooza 2006") when I get back. But considering my track reocrd, no promises.

A Minor Setback

Well, things were going really well on the Felted Manpurse, at least until last night.

By about 10:30 last night I'd gotten it to the stage you see here, with the body done and about halfway done the flap. Great progress! Sure I'd be finished in time to felt it and block it while drying before Thursday!

And then I happened to whack my right index finger against the bathroom counter. Very, very hard. So hard that I thought I must have broken something, though forcing myself to bend my finger through the pain obviously proved that nothing was. Didn't prevent me from letting out a whispered stream of curses, though.

So instead of knitting for hours last night, I spent the time with my index finger tucked between two icecubes, wrapped in a towel. This morning when I woke up it was so stiff and sore I couldn't get back to sleep, but over the day it's loosened up and doesn't hurt as much so there's hope. I finished the flap and did the I-cord bind off and actually I think it's helped get some of the flexibiltiy back, as earlier I couldn't curl my finger around the yarn and now it only hurts when I curl my finger as tightly as I can.

Here's hoping it hasn't gone all stiff again tomorrow, as I need to do the felting then. Of course it wouldn't be Jack Bauer's manpurse if things didn't go badly wrong at the 11th--er, more like 23rd hour and there was a race to the finish, the outcome uncertain until the last minute. ;-)

Well I made it through the two convocation ceremonies, and I have to admit I only brought out my knitting once. I'm sorry, but the Acting President's speech was long and boring as hell the first time, sitting through it the second time and not knitting would have been impossible. And at least I didn't fall asleep like some people in our party.

But yes, survived, though it wiped me out and I've been paying for it with sleep deprivation the rest of this week (though that's also because I didn't go to bed early enough some nights...).

Anyway, on the knitting front, well...there has been an astounding lack of progress. I think at this point my brain's saying "Yeah, remember why you don't knit to deadlines? Because it only makes you want to knit less? Oh, and now you have three more projects on the go. Congratulations!" Needless to say, this week I decided to cool it with the Dulaan knitting, considering I've only got about a week before it would have to go out and I think I'll just resolve to stock up on donatable knitted things for next year's Dulaan or Afghans for Afghans, or to donate closer to home. The local hospice has a crafting guild that meets on (I think) every Wednesday, making items to sell, and of course then there's the usual winter-woollie making for Sally Ann, Community Care, etc. It's the usual debate--people around the world need our help, but then there are many here at home too.

One thing I'd like to do in that kind of vein is start a teen knitting group as part of the programming at work. I've yet to discuss it with my boss, but I've been asked a couple times about if I would be interested in doing a knitting thing sometime, and I think I've go enough information to makea good pitch for an afterschool program. There's an afterschool chess club at one of the other branches that's been really popular, and we have a lot of teens coming into the library after school. Mostly to use the internet, but if I can give them maybe the opporunity to do something else...

The way it links into charity knitting is that I was thinking of offering a couple weeks of lessons or a couple weeks before the group starts. That way, people who don't know how to knit can learn before meeting, and of course learning techniques is always a good vehicle to create squares for blankets... Teens with some experience could come to the group meetings and could contribute squares as well, or work on their own projects. I think it would be interesting if we could find a place at the branch to display squares as they were completed, so that the teens--and everyone in the community--could see the blanket grow. When finished, we could maybe display it at the main library for a week or two, so that the kids could feel that they were showing off their accomplishment. I could also encourage them to knit mittens and hats and things.

But then like I said, I still need to approach my boss about this, see what she thinks, as well as whether we have a place in the schedule for it. Here's hoping, though.