Today I surprised myself by sleeping until noon then declaring today a “Lazy Day”. Without further ado I settled myself into a comfy chair and picked up my knitting. My roommate glanced over and commented that she finds it funny that I call getting dressed and then sitting and knitting “lazy”. The Yarn Harlot discussed this earlier in the month. Knitting is my relaxation, and to be honest, I have not been giving myself that time and space to sit quietly and let whatever thoughts roam through my mind go through. I am very glad I made time today to do so, on an otherwise grey and dreary day.

So, I ripped this sleeve, re-measured my gauge, and searched through Ravelry for a pattern that would fit the gauge, rather than the other way around. Leaving fit the bill the best: a cardigan, same stitch gauge as I was getting, on the same size needles as well! I started a sleeve about a week and a half ago and I am pleased with how it’s going.

It looks like the right dimensions for a sleeve! Hurray! The fact that I’m starting to have an idea of the right dimensions for a sleeve is pretty wonderful too. My hope is that today I finish this sleeve and cast on for the back today, so I’ll have plenty of knitting to keep me occupied. I have a very busy week ahead, including my own birthday festivities, and it’ll be wonderful to have all the knitting going smoothly to help me de-stress.

Hope you’re having a wonderful weekend!

I was working on a sweater for my aunt.

Gauge, you suck. And why do we pick a pattern before producing gauge? It would be much, much easier for me to figure out the gauge I want before finding a pattern for it. Maybe I’ll do that from now on.

I’ve been tearing my hair out since frogging that to figure out what I’m going to work on now. Almost makes me want to cast on for socks, except that I’m on a sock hiatus…

If you had these yarns, what would you do with them?

P.S. Happy New Year! Hopefully I’ll get a post about 2011 up tomorrow.

I don’t think you understand how this goes. I’m supposed to knit you with various sized needles, hopefully not TOO much smaller than the suggested ones. The pattern’s gauge is the same as the ballband suggested gauge, so this shouldn’t be too hard. I realize superwash yarn will grow when washed, so I’m taking that into account.

Suggested needle size is US 6. Knowing that I hardly ever get gauge on the recommended needles, I drop a few sizes. Let’s try US 4. Knit a swatch. Knit kind of tightly, because I have a bad feeling about this. Goodness, look at that nice dense stitching. If that’s not 24 stitches to 4 inches, I don’t know what I’ll do!

Bind off. Cross fingers. Measure. 23 stitches to 4 inches. Excuse me while I bang my head on the wall, then wash the swatch.

It grows. (I don’t want to measure it.)

I used US 4 needles, swatch! For sport weight yarn that suggests US 6! It is YOU that is having the problem here, not me. Because those stitches were packed nice and tight and they still were not 24 stitches to 4 inches. Which YOUR ballband says you can achieve. And then you have to go and grow on me! It’s like you’re not listening to your own manufacturers. Take heed, swatch! Because I cannot forgive you for this.

I might have to just re-engineer the sweater for the gauge I have, because ugh, getting the right gauge is always a nightmare. And that, friends and readers, is the secret to why I don’t knit more sweaters. Getting Gauge Is a NIGHTMARE. Why can’t it just do what it’s told?!

No love, ever,
Stephanie

Knitting is something I can do for people, so when I was staying at the hospital with my mom for a week I was itching to make something for her. Something to convey the warmth and love I feel for her even though I moved 1,500 miles away. Something like

So far the pattern is pretty easy to “read” while I’m knitting, so when I make a mistake, I figure it out pretty quickly. It’ll also take a long time but not be too heavy, which is a great thing to work on in this weather. I know I have sweaters and things to finish, but when the temperature dips below 80˚F, then I think it’ll be a good time to get back to them. For now I’ll stow those away and work on this.

Because I really couldn’t resist the yarn cake, either.

(Complete with fuzzy cat in the background!)

And that yarn accident I had?

There won’t be any more this summer. Promise.

Firefox 4 is also pretty shiny.

While waiting for the computers to transfer I threw some of my nervous energy into finishing a shawl I’d been working on over the semester.

Aaaand I knew I was going to run out of yarn at the bind off. I had about a quarter or maybe a bit more of the stitches left when I thought about melting and ranting and raving and putting this project away never to see the light of day. Then I calmly walked to the corner of my closet in which yarn leftovers make their home and found this storm purple/grey yarn. I had a quick argument with myself: am I the type of person who will finish the bind off in another color? Am I the type of person who will rip back and take out a row or two in order to have enough yarn? Am I the type of person who will blog about this first and ask other people’s opinions before doing something drastic?

Before fully committing myself to the realization that I just needed something off the needles, I asked myself if I wanted to rip back a row and knit two rows in storm grey so that there’s a cool border of light purple. And do I want to give this to someone. No, it didn’t work out that way. This knit was solely for my comfort in a time I was grieving. Therefore it needed to be off the needles, and it couldn’t belong to anyone else, and I am totally okay with the fact that part of the bind-off is in a different color. Surprisingly, it fades in fairly well. Watch this space for FO posts, hopefully coming this week!

At the end of April I was searching for a temp agency in a confusing area with a friend and we found a yarn store as we were on our way out. We were sooo excited that we practically ran to the store, which had this lovely yarn. This lovely, inexpensive, squishy, variegated yarn, which is Plymouth Yarn Happy Feet. Oh yeah, these socks are going to make someone’s feet happy. As I knit this I realize that I’ve missed variegated yarns lately! Good variegation, that is, which this most certainly is. Happy stripes of color. This sock is knitting up far too quickly for my enjoyment.

I decided that I have more than enough socks, so any pair I knit from now on will have to go to friends and family. This pair is going to my roommate, who has been a great person to have around, and she hasn’t gotten anything knitted in the last year since living with me. It’s time! ;) It’s funny to me that I think of myself as primarily a sock knitter, but in the last year I’ve stopped knitting socks so much to the point that I almost forget what my favorite methods of knitting socks are. I guess life really does go in stages.

But sock yarn is still a good yarn to get me as a present. Because as the first picture reveals, I am not above making more shawls… At one of my knitting club meetings last semester they said they attributed shawl knitting with me. Must be my current knitting phase!

I started this shawl about 36 hours after I received the scariest, no-good, completely awful-rotten news of my entire life. That was 9am on a Thursday. This picture is from the next morning. Tomorrow will mark two weeks living with that news, and I think I can make it to go on living. I have had amazing support from my friends. “What do you need?” they said, and then they supplied: helping me make dinner, going out in the evenings with me to keep my mind off of it. Hugs and letting me vent. The first 48 hours, really, all I could do was knit and read poetry. And now, unfortunately, it’s two weeks until finals and I haven’t really held myself together enough to have everything done like I’d like to.

But in the long run, what’s important? That I get straight As this last semester or that I realize what’s important to me (my family, my friends)? I’m starting to get really anxious about what I’ll do after I graduate, but in the meantime I’m focusing on the fact that in three weeks I will be able to wrap my arms around my mom and squeeze as tightly as I can. Hey, maybe this shawl will be done and she’ll decide she wants it, so that even when I can’t be there in person, I’m there in spirit.