Finish it up!

It started just like any normal day after finishing a project (btw, I am so flattered at all of the comments about my "evening stockings"... I love them almost too much to stuff them in a pair of sneakers, and really had a blast sharing them with yall)-- I wound my yarn...


Lisa Souza Sock! in "bird of paradise"

Isn't that going to be a RAD pair of pomatomii??! Back in the day (pic to follow, keep up!) I'd have called them max tripx0r socks, muy psychadelic. These were the rave in the desert, pantlegs bigger than my waist, glow in the dark beaded arms, chun li hairstyle* and glitter *everywhere* days (and 10 years ago! oy...), just for a little context ;)

So I went to knit my gauge swatch and cantfindmyUS2dpn! I generally only have one set per size of all my needles (dpns and circs), and this was a blow. I did find a pair of US 2 bryspun dpns, but my gauge was so off... the sticky plastic needle didn't really get me to tighten up and it just wasn't going to work. (Incidentally, I like using the bryspuns on the "socks that rock" yarn, it slides much easier than the Lisa Souza does, just b/c of the plying I'm sure.) So I go to look for my US 1's and they're still in my entrelac sock of doom... ergh. I think I could get gauge on my US 1.5 addi circulars, but I really didn't want to use circs for this project... I even tried using my tiny 3.0mm Susanne ebonies (got the same gauge with the Bryspuns! so no go)... and went to go rip out and wind the entrelac sock back into a ball for later.

I just couldn't do it.

I think its a combination of guilt (lovely sock, almost done ... and guilt about my laziness in just wanting the dpn set for another sock), and also reading about whipup's report of the "finish it up" meme (I'm not a meme person, I'm not that interesting and I ramble enough without direction as it is...), but I finished the entrelac sock.



I'm glad I did! I feel so accomplished... it feels like I finished a sock in 2 days instead of (more). I am going to wait to put the afterthought heel in so I can be sure its the same as its pair. There really wasn't that much work-- just the section after the afterthought heel. I am a bit worried of the foot length... I think it'll be an inch short, maybe I should have knit the men's size. I think I'll be trying to compensate by knitting a deeper heel... hm, dunno.

So on with the finish it up thing-- I dug out my unfinished Shimmer shrug from knitty winter 2003 and finished it!



Shimmer shrug from Knitty
Started: ?
Finished: June 4, 2006
Cascade Pima Tencel, #1353 colorway (cornflower blue) -- 7 balls
US 5 & 6 circular needles
M size with S size arms

I am a bit ashamed at how little there was to do-- I finished it over 2 days (Sat & Sun). I started this as a relatively new knitter, so there are some glaring things-- when adding on a new ball of yarn, I held both strands together and knit with it, and then went to pick the old ball's strands up and knit them into upper rows (I think? I have no idea) and have blips in the RS that are noticeable/messy. I also remember knitting the arms longer than they were called for, wanting the ruffle to hit my knuckles-- um, after blocking? the arms hang a good inch past my fingertips. Heh... I think I'll be unknitting the arms (somehow!! new proposition for me). But its DONE, and actually is wearable as is (except with a bit of a bunchy arm).

Weird thing is-- when I went to open the bag the shrug was stored in... (I'm embarrassed to say, but we're all friends here, yeah?) this smell wafted up at me. Like, not a good smell, sort of a dried fish smell. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW OR WHY... but yeah, it was faintly stinky, a weird stinky. Its all been fixed with a wash in kookaburra, but oy, weird. (None of my other yarn smells, at least.)

And because I'm on a bit of a roll here down memory lane-- I remembered way back when to prom and this very similar smell :) I wanted to wear a not-prom dress, and goaded my date to drive me to LA's Chinatown district to buy a cheongsam style dress (eh, yeah I'm Japanese). First of all, I'm a big girl-- I think 40" bust and xxx" hips, and it was an *ordeal* to find a dress among size 1's to fit me. Finally, small store but 4 stories high I found one-- on the 3rd floor. The building was wooden and you took the stairs up... first floor was the food market, with dried fish and a full Chinese pharmacy along the long wall, second was knickknacks, third was clothing and more knickkacks, and fourth was...? I don't think I made it that far. Anyhow, found a dress, brought it downstairs and paid, went home. Sitting in my date's small pocket rocketish car, there was this fishy funk and we were all ... ?!?!

My dress smelled. Like cured fish.

The car, after the 2 hour drive home and baking in the desert, begun to smell like fish too. I didn't notice in the store since, well the whole place had that dried fish funk smell (not bad dispersed over 4 stories, but concentrated into a satin dress?? Oy.)

Needless... it was drycleaned out, and I can't remember prom much (didn't drink, just wasn't too memorable).

For fun, a pic...



This is a picture of a picture from a wallet sized, 10 year old photo :) I have mercifully cropped my date out b/c he took the *worst* picture... one closed eye and everything... and I don't want to splash his pic around since I haven't seen him in forever. Still was a sweet guy & I didn't want to embarrass him with a bad pic. I should have cropped out my head-- back in those days it was all about the brown red lipstick too :)

Eek. No laughing, too much anyway.



*edit: apologies, original google image link had some nsf pics.

Not so much entrelac, Warming Grace, Bay Area yarn donations...

Not much progress on the "A Step Above" socks...



I'm a tier/triangle short of adding on the waste yarn for the afterthought heel. I haven't done one before, but it shouldn't be that bad... I'd also read recommendations to knit a few stst rows before and after the waste yarn, I've got to google more about it.

I've been working on a few knitted squares for Warming Grace:





I'd seen the buttons but hadn't read about it til yesterday. It just gets to me... anything that has to do with kids do that now, ever since I became preggo with my mayor of munchkinland-- I can't help but have my heart call out to sick kids and their parents. I think its terribly sweet, so I've put down the sock for now and am going to try and bang out more squares to send by midweek. Cynthia's in Canadia so I've got to allow for more time for the post... I'm also going to send a hank of Brooks Farms Fourplay yarn for the draw, too... maybe some (gasp) sock yarn.

I have a dearth of pink yarn in the stash, the pink/purple pictured above and a bit of Rowan Calmer that as been thusfar "claimed" and walked about the house for the past hour...



So I ordered some (more) handspun from Grace @ Santa Cruz Handspun... (she also has a new "seafoam" lot for sale that would be great for a seafoam stitch scarf... five times fast!) but I already have some (more) handspun in the wings, patiently waiting for me to forget about socks so we can elope in vegas, and one has only so much space on the desk for yarn to hang out and wait for me to tire of tiny needles.

In other, almost knitting news, I've culled my stash significantly and found a great place to donate it to.


(He "lost" his pants between this and the previous photo.)

Mostly dk weight wool/alpaca, a few bags of patons (grace, fresco), a bag of bernat satin that was supposed to be a pinwheel blanket, and (gasp) sock yarns that I knew wouldn't be knit up any time soon... Straight bamboo needles, a few duplicate circulars, crochet hooks, a few pattern books, etc too.

Building Futures with Women and Children is looking for knitting and crochet supplies for their children's shelter program... many of their residents are women and children, some fleeing domestic violence situations. They advertised on Craigslist and I was happy to find a group that could put yarn to use... if you're in the Bay Area (California), their contact info is below (and more info about their program in the link above):

Liz Nickels, M.A. Psy.D.
Associate Program Director
Building Futures with Women and Children
1395 Bancroft Avenue
San Leandro, CA 94577
510/357-0205; ext 112
lnickels@bfwc.org

Original Craigslist post *here*.

Even better, they're going to come pick it up. Getting anywhere is usually a production around here, so its super great to be able to box it up and have them drop by.

Since this is a random post, a pic I managed to take earlier (with pants and everything!)...



:)

...ps, thanks for all of the comments on my photos recently! There's no trick really, I rely on my camera's (Canon s410) macro setting, no flash-- I take several since many tend to blur as I don't use a tripod, and just reduce down to 25% which makes them look sharper than they actually/probably are. As my little boy pics above can attest to, its much easier to take photos of non-moving (aka yarn) things than redblooded boy things.

Back to wrestling the Calmer away from monkichi...

A Step Above Socks in progress

"A Step Above Socks"
from Knitter's Magazine, Summer 2004
Started: April 9, 2004
US 1 dpns (2.25mm), set of 5
Ellen's Half Pint Farm sock yarn-- 80% superwash wool, 20% nylon. 500 yd/4 oz, no colorway given.





I've loved and avoided these socks for forever out of entrelac = difficult noia and also fear of the puckiness that the resulting fabric creates. I shouldn't have waited so long, the socks are rad and the act of wearing them stretches out the fabric so they lose the pucky factor (though its not too pronounced, as you can see above.) It is a super fun knit, too-- fascinating and at times I look and wonder if I'm knitting a sock at all! It also incorporates the fun of picking up stitches, though it has an afterthought heel.

I also included a detail shot of the sock, just to show off the colors of the yarn. I had no idea how pretty it was til I balled it up this Sunday, white to grey to mauve to brown/purple, and also perfect for this pattern with short color repeats (that would probably pool badly with a CO of 60 sts, like the pattern's ribbing called for). I've been thinking a lot about pooling and sock yarns... it tough since everyone knits differently, but the difference btw 10 CO sts can be dramatic, turning a "pooling" yarn into a striping or blippy one. There's got to be some rhyme or reason... perhaps with my leftovers from socks I'll start a little library of gauge swatches in the round with varying CO #'s just to see if there is the difference I think there is.

I really dig this yarn. I picked it up @ Stitches West, and can't find any info about it on the vendor's website, but it was $18. Its about the gauge of Lorna's Sock but has more twist, but it is quite soft and again, great skein size and the nylon content is not noticeable (soft like Lorna's though they both have the same nylon content). I'm pretty sure I got 9 sts/inch in stst on the US 1's... the pattern called for 8 sts/inch, but with the stretch of the pattern, the fact my foot is less than the 9" circumference for the women's size I'm knitting, and that I just couldn't imagine knitting this yarn on US 2's I went with the US 1's.

The pics are a little dark, as the white in the yarn is true and was throwing off the rest of the colors... I'll try for a better shot later.

Definitely not car knitting, but sit up when everyone's asleep and play with blocks knitting :)