Lace and conversation

Posted on 30 March 2006 by Kris

Kristen organized a knitting get-together at Rebecca’s last Saturday, where I met Jennifer, Allison, and Erika for the first time. There were also some familiar faces: Kristen, Jessica, Marisa, and Cora. I was pretty quiet, but I still enjoyed myself.

The goal is to make the get-together a weekly thing, but this weekend is also a Whistlestop weekend. I’m trying to decide whether I should go to both or just pick one.

I will hopefully have a new project on the needles to work on by this weekend, because lately, the Forest Path Stole has been my only knitting-in-public project.

It’s a lace and entrelac stole, so it doesn’t look particularly simple. In fact, it’s apparently somewhat of a minor miracle that I can still pay attention to (and occasionally participate in) conversation while knitting FPS.

However, I’m on the 15th tier.

This means that I’ve knit each chart at least 16 times. By this point, I’ve long memorized each chart’s internal logic, which means that I don’t have to refer to my printouts very often.

So FPS is actually the easiest project for me to tote around right now. Neither of my remaining WIPs is as suitable for knitting in public. Eris is a bit too large and fiddly for me to tote around (trying to knit sleeves in the round when they’re already attached to a sweater body is not so fun). And my toe socks have a non-intuitive striping pattern, so I can’t just mindlessly work on that in public either.

I’m getting fairly close to the end here. I’m done with the lace either at the end of this tier or after tier 17, and then I’ll only have the seed stitch borders to do.

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So much for a sweater

Posted on 16 March 2006 by Kris

This is Eris before I wore it around the house for several nights in a row:

And this is Eris after:

I had really hoped that wearing it would make the sleeves relax enough, but no luck there. Unfortunately, like I mentioned in a previous post, sometimes even a quarter of an inch makes a difference.

Besides, if I’m not entirely happy with it, I’m never going to wear it, and there’s no point in having knit this if I’m not going to get any use out of it. Reknitting, here I come!

At first, I thought the problem was entirely with the gauge changing post-wash. But when the body relaxed to the point I wanted it to, and the sleeves remained slightly uncomfortable, I realized that the gauge change wasn’t the biggest part of the problem.

I’d come up with a sleeve formula on my own. I’m in between sizes as far as upper arm circumference goes, and the proportions in the pattern as written are all wrong for me, given how short my arms are. So when I realized that the gauge wasn’t the real issue, I figured that I’d screwed up the calculations somewhere.

But I looked back at my old notes, and it turns out that after a string of perfect math, I’d rounded down instead of up to get an even stitch count at the beginning. It doesn’t sound like that big of a deal. But given the gauge, that’s nearly a half-inch difference in circumference right there. And now I feel really silly for making that particular mistake.

Oh well, lesson learned. It’s my first sweater, so I’m entitled to some learning experiences, right?

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The sheltering sky

Posted on 15 March 2006 by Kris

I had read through a good portion of The Sheltering Sky and then had to put it on hold for a bit. You can only renew books once in the San Diego city library system, and I’d already done so just before the Olympics (and before realizing that I’d turn into a complete couch potato for almost all of the renewal period).

Anyway. I finally completed it. And my final impression does not match my initial impression. A couple of chapters in, I liked it. But now, while I certainly don’t think it’s bad, I just couldn’t really get into it, particularly in the later chapters. I probably would have liked it better if I had a reason to care about the characters, but I found them to be pretty empty, and therefore thought, “okay, but so what?” more than once throughout the course of the novel.

Maybe that was deliberate. Maybe Paul Bowles wanted to draw more attention to the themes than to any of the characters themselves. If that’s the case, then he succeeded. In fact, there are places where I felt like I was being beaten over the head with those existential themes.

It’s actually a relatively quick read (all my breaks from it notwithstanding), and the writing style does suit the story rather well. From an objective standpoint, it’s a job well done on Bowles’s part, and I can see why it’s on the Modern Library’s top 100 list.

I still wouldn’t recommend it if you’re looking for an enjoyable read, though.

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River rapids

Posted on 11 March 2006 by Kris

Being a San Diegan employed in a ridiculously casual office, I almost always wear flip-flops. But thanks to the recent rain, I’ve had to wear real shoes, and therefore I’ve been wearing fun socks. Like the following, which I finished earlier this week:

Pattern: River Rapids Socks (PDF) by Sockbug
Yarn: Dale Baby Ull in color #6714
Needles: US1 Clover DPNs

As I’ve mentioned before, I ended up knitting these at a tighter gauge (8 st/in, to be exact). It’s mostly due to a sizing issue, as the 7.5 st/in specified in the pattern would give me a slightly too large sock. That, and I just didn’t like the fabric I was getting with the looser gauge.

The pattern calls for sport weight yarn; I used fingering weight. I’d probably have to knit the sport weight ridiculously tightly to get the right gauge (as I tend to knit loosely) and besides, I already had the Baby Ull on hand.

The tubular cast on has relaxed a bit with blocking. Even so, I need to go up one needle size when casting on for socks with this method, as it’s not as elastic as I’d prefer.

These are totally my favorite socks to date. Not that I’ve knit all that many pairs, but still. These are certainly the most comfortable pair – the yarn feels lovely on my feet, and other than the fact that they’re just a bit loose around the heel, these socks fit me rather well.

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Easiest goal ever

Posted on 05 March 2006 by Kris

I went above and beyond my March goal regarding this project.

Pattern: Odessa by Grumperina
Yarn: Rowan Cashsoft DK in color #508 (Ballad Blue)
Needles: US4 Crystal Palace DPNs for the ribbing, US6 Clover DPNs for the pattern stitch
Other: 110 size 6 Darice glass beads (purchased from Beverly’s; one tube is more than enough)

The hat blocked out slightly longer than I’d anticipated, as you can probably tell from the way it’s folding at the nape of my neck. If I were to knit this hat again, I’d probably knit to 5.75″ before the decreases (yes, I’m being a bit nit-picky now, but sometimes a quarter of an inch makes quite the difference!). For me, that would require doing beaded stitches on different decrease rows, as 5.75″ puts me right in the middle of a pattern repeat.

I’d rather have a hat that’s too long over one that’s too short, though, so I still like this hat and will get good use out of it.

It’s a really easy, quick knit, and it’s not hard to modify if you need to. However, as my previous post indicates, if you’re using the recommended yarn, one ball may not be enough if you knit, say, 6″ before the decreases.

In general blog news, I recently did some sidebar and archive cleanup. According to my site stats, people don’t really use the monthly archives, so I reduced the number of months displayed in my sidebar and made a nice archive index instead. So they’ll still be available for those who care, and as a bonus, there are even direct links to the entries themselves.

I also realized that the list of FOs will eventually be a bit unwieldy, so now my sidebar displays five (random) links and a link to the main project index. I’m not completely sold on the project index yet, but it definitely works, and hey, if I change my mind, it’s not that hard to tweak the code.

The project index reminds me that I never did take a final picture of my tipless gloves, and I could use a better picture of Falling Leaves as well. I’ll probably get around to both those photographs later this month (I need to take the gloves home from my office and wash them anyway).

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