kmkat and her kneedles

What did you knit on your road trip, Kat™?

I started the Ann Arbor/New York trip with:

• a second sock OTN:
• the linen stitch scarf OTN:
• a cake of yarn for a second cowl like this one.

In a fit of unbridled optimism I also brought along the Fairfield sweater, which had been in time out for a week or two due to its sleeves nasty state of not having enough stitches at the beginning of the armhole shaping. And I also brought along yarn for another pair of socks -- just in case of being stranded on a desert island.

I arrived home with a finished pair of socks (just in time; the trip lasted longer than I had packed for and I wore these socks IMMEDIATELY), a finished linen stitch scarf, a finished cowl, and a good start on a third cowl, using the yarn I had brought along for socks.

The finished socks:

 

Oh, dear. Let's play a rousing game of "Find The Dropped Stitch", shall we?

Must fix.

Yarn: Lang Jawolle Color Superwash, color 8288, about 1.5 skeins, acquired in a destash from Lorette. Contrasting heels and toes are some unknown superwash contributed when I begged for sock yarn for my afghan.
Pattern: Plain vanilla, using, as always, Wendy's Generic Toe-Up Sock Pattern; 60 st.
Needles: Knitters Pride Karbonz circs. Feet, US#0; legs, US#1.5. 

 

The linen stitch scarf, unblocked:

Remember how I mentioned that two-stitch patterns give me fits? Here is the linen stitch scarf with visible errors highlighted. You can be sure there are other oddities hidden in the folds. I am relying on the trotting galloping horse theory of errors.

 

Yarns: Lang Jawolle Superwash Solids, oxford gray (83.0003) and light gray (83.0085); Marks & Kattens Fame Trend, color 662.
Pattern: Linen Stitch Scarf by Matthew Hesson-McGinnes. There are any number of patterns for this scarf. I picked this one because 1, it didn't have fringe, and B, it was free.
Needle: Knit Picks Options Interchangeable Rainbow Wood, US#9. I think these needles had a different name when I bought them.
Notes: The pattern calls for a US#8 needle, but I preferred the fabric I got when using the US#9. Knitter's choice. Also, bigger needle = less knitting = sooner done.

 

Cowl The Second:

Yarn: Lisa Souza Sock! Merino; colorway Appaloosa. Searching the blog reveals that I never told you about this yarn. This was a special colorway being sold as an online fundraiser for an equine rescue organization. As a member of board of my local humane society AND a knitter, how could I NOT buy a skein?
Pattern: Willow Cowl.
Needle: Signature US#5.
Notes: After wearing Cowl The First so much this past winter I decided I wanted the next one to fit a bit more snugly. I did some extra decreases in the stockinette sections on this one, but I overdid it. Cowl The Second may be a little too snug for indoor wear. It will be perfect to wear instead of a scarf when the temp is <0˚F.

 

Cowl The Third:

Yarn:  Schachenmayr Nomotta Regia Linien Color.
Pattern: Willow Cowl.
Needle: Signature US#5.
Notes: I followed the pattern on this one.

Question: Why did I change my mind and make a cowl from this yarn, which had been destined to be a pair of socks? 
Answer: I was working on Cowl The Second one day on the trip when we were chatting with Smokey's cousin and her husband. She asked about my knitting. As we all know, anyone who expresses any interest in an objet d'knit is fair game. This cowl is for her. 

I did not touch the Fairfield sweater on the entire trip. It is still in time out, although I have figured out my next step.

Tomorrow we see what I started (and finished!) since we got home.

Muttering on a Sunday.

1. Rabbit :: Hop.
2. Judged :: American Idol.
3. Produce :: Lettuce.
4. Bank :: Money.
5. Standard :: Normal.
6. Mister :: In-Between.
7. Tissue :: Kleenex.
8. Summon :: Court.
9. Selfishly :: Mine!
10. Chatting :: Online.

* * * *

Last weekend Younger Son got into cleaning my kitchen. (Be still, my heart!) When he got to the stove, he decided I needed new burner pans and rings; not only did he decide that, he went onto Amazon and bought me some.

I still can't figure out why he thought I needed new ones.

* * * * *

He is currently at the NAB show in Las Vegas, as I mentioned in an earlier post. He sent some photos from his first day.

Airport? Conference center? Hotel on The Strip? Doesn't matter -- palms and sun and 60˚!

 

Pre-show.

 

Where to start? (Not YS in photo.)

 * * * * *

In other fabulously fascinating news, I watched The Avengers yesterday. Having seen numerous references to Tom Hiddleston, Loki, and Thor on the 'net, I decided I wanted needed to know what it was all about.

Actually, I lie. I watched the first hour, got interrupted, and decided I didn't need to watch the rest. I know who Loki and Thor are and what Asgard is now.

Edited to add: Looks like I watched that movie just in time. Or I wouldn't have understood this.

* * * * *

In knitting news, I am up to the armholes on the back of Fairfield and nearly to the armhole shaping on the sleeves.

As usual, red yarn is impossible to capture accurately.

There is a faint possibility that I may knit my way straight through this sweater, which would be a first for me. I always get distracted by smaller projects -- scarves, mittens, hats, what-have-you. Let's keep our fingers crossed...

Remember when I used to do Sunday posts?

Younger Son drove up yesterday afternoon. 

This is how he drove that last 20 miles.

Let's do bullets, shall we?

• My Mac Mini had been slowing down unmercifully over that last few months. Adding an external hard drive for docs, spreadsheets, photos, and music helped a lot,
• In an effort to make it better yet YS and I wiped the internal hard drive and we he reinstalled the OS.
• Did it help? Yes, but I have spent a lot of time over the past month trying to recover stuff that seems to have gone missing -- my calendar, my address book, all my iTunes playlists, a huge chunk of photos in iPhoto.
• Happily, my calendar, address book, and playlists are intact on my iPhone.
• Tragically, my computer is being extremely stubborn about synching with those apps.
• I may need to resort to hand grenades. Or nuclear weapons.
• What are the chances that will work?
• [/whine]

 

Elder Son:

• Finished his coursework at UMich in Ann Arbor, went back to Big Nasty Med School in Manhattan to finish his last credit there.
• Last credit had been left unfinished to prevent four years of med school loans from coming due while he was in grad school.
• On March 17 he found out he had *matched* for his residency.
• (The Match is a complicated nationwide thing that matches fourth-year med students with residency programs in their selected specialty.)
• His mood, which has ranged from frustrated to sullen to depressed to righteously angry during his med school years, improved dramatically.
• Four days later -- a brief period during which those students who didn't match and those residency programs that didn't fill scramble frantically to interview each other via Skype in hopes of falling in love -- he found out his match was with a hospital in Sioux Falls SD.
• While he would have preferred to be in Duluth, he thinks the program in SF is actually a bit better.
• His mood improved even more.
• He has been bombarding us with links to 1, houses for sale in SF, and b, pictures of Newfoundlands.
• He has wanted a Newfie for years.
• We think buying a house is just so he can be sure he will have a place to have a Newfie.
• Priorities, people, priorities!

 

Smokey:

• Had a cardiologist appointment last week.
• All good.
• He returned to work a couple days, er, nights ago.
• He has found that the stents in his coronary arteries seem to have improved the circulation to his legs, which used to cramp at night and/or be restless.
• This equals better sleep.
• He has also found that he no longer needs to sit down to put on his pants. His balance is improved so much he can do it standing up.
• I am jealous of that.
• He bought a zombie mask to wear when he went back to work (since he had risen from the dead).
• Black/weird humor is our specialty. Also popular among psych personnel.

 

Me:

• I am rolling along on my Fairfield cardigan. Back is done to the armholes, sleeves are about 6" long.
• This is a delightful knit -- just enough cabling/lace to make it interesting, but lots of stockinette so it doesn't take forever.
• I just hope I have enough yarn. 
• I made the back 2" shorter than the pattern called for, but the pattern length seemed to be for someone taller than I. The shorter length is the same as most of my sweaters.
• I have been working way harder than I necessarily wanted to on my campaign for my fourth term on our county board -- lit drops, knocking on doors, making phone calls, putting up signs.
• It didn't help that I had lost MS Word from my computer (see above) or that my computer was not talking to my printer (ditto) during the time when I was making flyers and drafting my answers to survery questions from a local newspaper.
• Smokey's coal-fired computer running MS Word 97 and his printer (that used to be mine and is at least ten years old) came to the rescue.
• I spent a couple weeks running back and forth between his office and mine, dodging piles of crappe in both places.
• My entire campaign is contained on a thumb drive.
• When Big Money rolls into the county to back a slate of candidates, it makes the rest of the candidates work harder than has ever been done before.
• But I have met a lot of people I didn't necessarily know before, and I have had a lot of help from others who believe in me.
• Tuesday is Election Day. 
• Keep your fingers crossed, m'kay? Thanks.

Solidarity forever. And knitting.

This is what it looks like when you recruit people to get on a bus at 6 am to ride through the cold (it was -19˚F when we left Eau Claire) to the state capitol to lobby their their legislators in support of libraries. Some talk, some read, some are glued to their iPhones or iPads, and some sleep.

Oh, and one of them knits. (More on that later. Non-political types may want to skip down past the YouTube to the knitting.)

Tuesday was the annual Library Legislative Day in Wisconsin, and, as a trustee of the regional library system, I participated. (Sadly, given that my state senator and assemblyman are both firmly in the pocket of Governor Walker -- who is firmly in the pocket of ALEC, the Koch brothers, and anyone else who will donate significant money to his campaign(s) -- I am not sure how much good it did. But it needed to be done and I did my part.)

Perhaps you remember the demonstrations at the Wisconsin state capitol back in 2011, when Walker's legislature stripped the public employees' unions of much of their bargaining power. 

Those demonstrations may be diminished in size, but they never quite ended.

 

Okay, enough with the politics. What about the knitting, Kat?

As I mentioned before, I started working on the back of the Fairfield sweater in preparation for the trip. Got the ribbing and the first couple rows of the pattern done.

Here's what it looked like when I got back home.

That may not look like a lot of knitting, but it is 147 stitches wide. Such is the downside of being a Woman Of Substance.

Want to see something funny? Here is that same knitting doing its impression of a radioactive sweater:

Yup. Red is still darned hard to photograph.

Knitting. FOs. WIPs.

Once upon a time I took up needlepoint. But after making several Christmas ornaments and two framed nutcrackers, I decided I didn't like needlepoint because it was... frivolous. Nothing I made had any particular use; I felt like a pampered rich bitch from the seventeenth century who probably deserved to have her head lopped off and all her possessions distributed to the starving serfs who slaved to make her useless existance happen.

Ahem.

Knitting is not like that. Knitting is useful. Knitting is functional. Sure, we can make frivolous things sometimes, but by and large, even those frivolous things are at least nominally useful.

My recent knitting has been useful.

I finished two pairs of fingerless gloves. The Kat's™ hands are safe from frostbite. Midwestern hospitals have been reporting an epidemic of frostbite this winter. Apparently, many people have forgotten how to dress for the weather.

Not me. I dislike being cold. My winter outerwear is either a down jacket or a down coat. Toasty warm but boring because both are dark brown. Boorrrr-ing.

Solution: jazz them up with bright hat(s), scarf(ves), gloves, mittens.

There was the turquoise hat and scarf I made last spring. Hat keeps me warm, scarf did, too, until I lost misplaced it. 

A casual stop at the outlet mall scored me two pairs of leather gloves. 

But leather gloves, while perfect for gripping the steering wheel, are not terribly warm. Fingerless gloves to the rescue!

I pair the blue set with the down coat, which is what I wear when it is particularly cold. Because they are stranded knitting and worsted weight yarn on US#5 needles, they are warm.

The fingertip cuffs can be extended when it is really, really cold.

Pattern: Striped Mittens from Favorite Mittens by Robin Hansen.
Yarn: Cascade 220 in the creatively named 4006, about half a skein. The blue and green tweedy bits are two strands of sock yarn held together, Online Highland colors (also creatively named) 838 and 840.
Needle: Signature US#5/3.75mm circ.

The red set is paired with the down jacket when the temp is above 20˚F.

The red set has not gotten much use this winter.

Pattern: Basic Mitten Pattern, from The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns by Ann Budd.
Yarn: More of the same Cascade 220 for the ribbing and Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Iron Ore (not currently available) for the hand.
Needles: Signature US#5/3.75mm circ.

Then there was my cowl. I liked it so much I decided to make a cowl for a friend whose birthday is this month. (She doesn't read the blog, so it is safe to show it here.) I have been thinking about knitting her something for her birthday for at least two years. I had only a week until her birthday, however; clearly, her gift could not be the Clapotis I had been thinking about nor a fingering weight cowl like mine. But I had some lovely soft DK weight that would be perfect.

Behold, the City Creek Cowl!

 

She can wear it like this to keep her nose warm...

 

...or like this and pretend she is Elizabeth I...

 

...or like this, demure like a Jane Austen heroine.

Pattern: City Creek Cowl by Susan Lawrence.
Yarn: Knit Picks Gloss DK (70/30 merino/silk; 50gr/123yd) in cream, about 1-1/4 balls. I have a couple skeins of fingering weight Gloss, and they feel like any other sock yarn. The DK, however, is delightfully soft and fluffy.
Needles: Knit Picks Options US#10.
Mods: The chart is 45 rows, then the pattern says to repeat rows 16-45 once. I omitted that repeat because I could not imagine attempting to wear a cowl that was as tall as it would have been.

Because this is DK weight yarn knit on 6.0mm needles, it has a nice soft drape. The pattern recommended blocking it on a large can to ensure that it is stretched enough to drape properly. I omitted that step, but I will tell her about it so she can do it if she wants it larger. (I have the perfect can -- maybe I should give her that, too.)

That's the FOs. Here is what I started after I rose from my sickbed last week.

That is the beginning of the sleeves for Fairfield, using the Gedifra merino/cotton that came in the mail last week. 

I will be spending at least ten hours in a car and a bus this week, plus needing to idle away a fair bit of time in the middle (more on that another day), which means lots of knitting time. Thinking that juggling two balls of yarn might be problematic -- I'm knitting both sleeves at once because if I don't they will not match, no way, ever -- I decided to cast on for the back. 

My goal is to march right through this sweater. I have made myself three sweaters since I got back to serious knitting in ~2005 and every darned one of them took me at least two years. Not this time (she said firmly).