kmkat and her kneedles

Sunny Sunday!

1. Poison :: ivy.
2. Las Vegas :: stars.
3. Nanny :: -cam.
4. Tablet :: computer.
5. Trail :: Oregon.
6. Innocent :: trail of the.
7. Invited :: uninvited.
8. Life :: torment.
9. Tormented :: sad.
10. Lousy :: lice.

* * * * *

The red quadrant es finito completo*. It is about 28"x20" (71cm x 40cm).

We all remember that that ruffly white edge at left and bottom is the provisional cast on, right? And that it it ruffly because it is DK weight rather than fingering? So none of us will be distracted by it? Good.

I plan to take a break from the afghan now. By the 28th square I was getting a little tired of it, plus I have committed to some other knitting -- mittens for Adrienne, another dog sweater for Ser Percy, a bit of Christmas knitting, possibly a hat/scarf/mittens for Elder Son's friend Alí. I plan to return to it by Christmas or soon thereafter.

* * * * *

Everyone's favorite pit bull is here again this weekend. As always, he brought Younger Son with him.

That is Lucy at the right, not Matthew.

The Halloween pedi remains more or less intact on Ser Percy. Such a stylish and seasonal dog!

* * * * *

From this morning's email. Smokey sent it to me because of he loves bears and dogs, but you and I should watch closely for the hand knit (?) sweater the man is wearing.

 

* * * * *

Yesterday I brought (gluten-free) brownies to a fund raiser for a woman who is thinking of running for governor next year. If you live in Wisconsin, keep an eye out for her -- Kathleen Vinehout. She is smart, passionate, progressive, and utterly delightful. 

 

 

* Mi español is nowhere near as good as I might like to think. Thank you, Google Translate!

 

On any given Sunday.

1. dead :: ringer
2. bangs :: hair
3. future :: imperfect
4. holistic :: medicine
5. circumstance :: beyond our control
6. past :: future
7. fan :: girl
8. happened :: one night
9. room :: -ful
10. awful :: -ness

* * * * *

Last week was all gold and glorious.

Today, guess what.

It's snowing.

See?

* * * * *

Last night I watched the Ozmandias episode of Breaking Bad, then finished reading The Night Circus. The book is my pick for tomorrow night's book club so I will have to lead the discussion; frankly, I don't know what the hell happened in the book. Between the awful violence of BB and the weirdness of the book, I had one doozy of an insecurity dream after I went to sleep. Took me awhile to figure out where all that insecurity came from (had to snuggle up next to Smokey for awhile), but once I did I felt better.

* * * * *

Smokey baked another of those awesome blueberry pies Friday night. The only reason this one lasted longer than 24 hours was that we knew we should save some for Matthew, who wouldn't be here until Saturday afternoon. Let me tell you, that was a real test of self-discipline.

* * * * *

Elder Son called yesterday from the Michigan-Indiana football game, which he was attending with friends. He said he had decided that, although football is his favorite game to watch, he prefers to watch it on TV. More comfortable, and cheaper food and drink close by. $6.50 for a hot dog at the game appalled him, poor guy. He was sounding quite rowdy, which is extremely unusual for him. Probably had done a bit of pre-game celebrating...

* * * * *

I am currently on square 28 out of 35 in the red quadrant of the sock yarn afghan. I think I will take a break once I finish #35 because I have committed to several other smallish project before winter -- another dog sweater for Ser Percival The Energetic, mittens for martinimade.com's mitten project, a possible hat and/or scarf and/or mittens for Ali, Andrew's friend. 

* * * * *

Edited to add: I didn't think the snow was gonna stick.

Guess again.*

* That is spearmint, a hardy perennial, being weighed down by snow. I plan to winter it over somewhere cold so I am not too worried about it getting snowed on. :: fingers crossed::

Friday, no FO.

I did not sew the buttons on my Tappan Zee so no modeling today. No button sewing because SOCK YARN AFGHAN. I am obsessed.

Here's a little somthing to tide you over.

Even the chart wasn't enough. Now I can finish the red quadrant.

WIP Wednesday, the sock yarn edition. Part 2.

Many thanks to Betsy and Donna for sharing their sock yarn leftovers with me.

That is one heck of a lot of sock yarn, yo.

The packages were waiting for me when we got back from vacation. I opened them and marveled, then spent an entire Saturday evening and most of Sunday rewinding things into tidy center-pull balls. 

I adore winding yarn on my ball winder, although it did get a little tedious after the
first dozen balls. So I moved the entire operation to the living room, where I could watch TV.
Please note the clever use of Edward Said's Orientalism, which I read on vacation.

My first pass at categorizing the yarns by color family.

As you can see, I am a bit light in the greens. If any of you have leftover sock yarn of the green persuasion, I'd be happy to take it off your hands.

Some of these -- previously mine and donated -- didn't make the cut, althrough no fault of their own. They just didn't quite fit into the plan.

Somewhere in the knitting of the first dozen or so squares, the overall plan of the afghan morphed into a different overall plan, one that I liked much better. It also had the advantage of being doable, as opposed the original vague plan which was not achievable without some significant warping of the space-time (and -color) continuum.

I happily knat away with the new plan in my head but soon realized that having a definite plan in my head did not necessarily translate to good yarn/color selections every time I started a new square.

So I did a real plan for the current quadrant...

...which looked like this before the infusion of all that new yarn.

Aside: Elizabeth asked how much yarn each square takes. I weighed the afghan-in-progress and divided by the number of completed squares: each square is ~5g. There are 4 rows of black at the beginning of each square so the colored part is slightly less than 5g, but I need to allow for the ends to weave in. Let's say 5g of colored yarn for each square.

That sock yarn afghan I mentioned t'other day.

Like many of us, I have entertained the fantasy of knitting an afghan from my sock yarn leftovers. I even started one a couple years ago but quickly discovered that there are significant gauge differences between the standard 75/25 superwash/nylon yarns of Opal, Regia, and their ilk, and the 100% merinos of the artisanal dyers.

>>>frog pond.

Now I am trying again. This time I hope to compensate for the difference by varying my needle size.

So far, so good.

The ruffly edge is my provisional cast on using Tahki, which is a DK weight smooth cotton yarn. Haven't decided yet whether I will go with a knitted border or attached i-cord, but that fiddly part where I have to pick up a gazillion stitches just got eliminated.

The square at upper left is Blue Moon Socks That Rock lightweight worked on a US2.5 (3.0mm) needle. The rest is various standard sock yarns worked on a US#3 (3.25mm) needle. I think my strategy is working :-)

Now, please direct your attention to the yarn cake at upper right. I dyed that last night with some strawberry Kool-Aid.

Before and after:

I got pretty much exactly what I wanted. A bit less color would have been better, but I am happy with this. The formula for Kool-Aid dyeing is one package of Kool-Aid per ounce of yarn. I had .9 ounces of the leftover yarn and used about half a package of Kool-Aid.

Now comes the part where I beg for yarn.

Last year I used up a lot of my sock yarn leftovers when I made the doggie poop bag holders for the local animal shelter. I still have a lot of full skeins that I can steal from, but my supply of leftovers is limited.

If you have some sock yarn leftovers that are burning a hole in your stash, would you consider sending them to me? Each square takes xx grams of yarn. Please do not send me full skeins -- that would be way too much and I would feel terribly guilty and have to do some ridiculous penance like scourging myself or fasting for a month to mollify my conscience and you don't want that, do you? So, leftovers only, please. E-mail me for my mailing address -- click on "About" at upper right corner of blog to get e-mail addy.

TIA!