Lace in public

Posted on 16 June 2005 by Kris

I was originally going to play poker last night and skip Claire de Lune, but due to a couple of the guys getting sick and so on, poker got cancelled. Man, first they guilt trip me for never playing with them, and then as soon as I decide to join them, they get sick on me. Silly boys. :-P

Anyway, so Claire de Lune it was! I was fairly quiet most of the time, but it was fun just listening to all of the conversation and seeing some new faces.

I made some progress on my Falling Leaves sock while I was there. I’ll definitely finish it this week, which is exciting. I tried it on today, and while it’s a tad bit looser than I’d like, it’s not like it’s falling off or anything, so I think I’ll get a bit of wear out of this thing, assuming I ever get the second sock done… I somehow need to finish the second one in between all the moving preparation, though, so I’m not sure how long it’ll take. I’m putting Shimmer on further hold until I finish the pair, because I’d like to at least try to get those socks done on time.

When I got sick of working with the 1s, I decided to tackle the first part of the Mystery Stole. What an excruciatingly boring step! Sure, it was boring enough for me to knit it and talk at the same time – which is why I brought it to Claire de Lune – but still…

I just finished it, though, and it looks like the next step will at least be slightly more interesting.

I discovered last night that I can’t do a left-handed combined purl very comfortably with laceweight yarn. I can do it just fine with worsted, but I think the combination of the fine gauge and my fairly loose lefthand grip is a rather poor one.

In other news, I installed WordPress on my webspace, but I don’t think I’ll get to seriously play with it (and therefore move my blog) until after I’ve settled into my new place. I did, however, figure out how to display both my personal LJ entries and knit blog entries on the same page. The question is, do I actually want to do that?

Oh well, time for less talking and more knitting packing.

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Bloggity blog blog

Posted on 09 June 2005 by Kris

I’ve decided that I’m going to move my knitting blog off LiveJournal at some point. I miss hosting my own! Also, my knitting and personal journals have almost completely different audiences (not that I have much of an audience here, but that’s not the point); not a lot of LJers reading me on their friends lists, so my knitting content probably won’t be missed there. I can always just create a syndicated account for the LJers who want to keep up with this journal, after all.

I’m not sure whether I want to figure out a way to display my personal entries (the public ones, that is) on my website along with my new knitting blog. I don’t know if that’ll be more interesting or more inane.

Anyway, so that’ll happen sometime in the near future.

As far as knitting progress goes, I finished the heel for my first Falling Leaves sock tonight! Very exciting. I’ll have this thing done in no time! No pictures yet, and anyway I’m not sure if Jess would mind, since it’s a pattern she wants to submit and if I recall correctly, she friends-locked all pictures of it on her LJ. But trust me, it’s turning out nicely so far. I wasn’t sure how much I’d like them beforehand, as I’m not the biggest fan of lacy socks and the variegated yarn versions obscure the pattern slightly. But now I can see myself wearing my solid green version (on the rare occasions that I actually wear socks, seeing as I can and do wear flip-flops to work).

My parents sent me my Knitpicks yarn yesterday so hopefully I’ll get it within the next couple of days. And then I’ll get started on that Mystery Stole at some point within the next week.

I started Clapotis with the yarn I’d dyed awhile back, but I don’t know if I’ll keep up with it. The yarn’s a teeny tiny bit felted, so I couldn’t wear it directly against my skin, but it’s so pretty in those colors! Though it’d be fine if I wear it with a turtleneck… Or maybe I’ll frog it and make a bag out of it instead. I don’t really know yet.

Sale at Two Sisters and Ewe this weekend. I’m supposed to resist purchases because of my upcoming move, but it’s not really that hard to move yarn, is it? ^_^* I’ll be good and make a list first, though, so that I don’t go completely overboard.

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Raaarrrrrr

Posted on 07 June 2005 by Kris

So my KnitPicks order arrived… at my parents’ place. 7+ hours away.

*grumble grumble*

My parents’ place is still my card’s billing address, which is probably why that happened, but knowing why doesn’t make me feel any better right now.

*pout*

I want my alpaca/silk yarn, damnit!

*deep breath*

Okay, mini-tantrum over, back to knitting…

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A yarny afternoon

Posted on 05 June 2005 by Kris

Didn’t do much knitting for the past few days, due to bad allergies earlier in the week and a nasty cold Friday and Saturday. No time to knit when you’ve got boxes of Kleenex practically glued to your hands, after all! :-P

But, reading one of Jess’ posts reminded me that she needed the test socks done by July, and seeing that I hadn’t done much with them since the last Whistlestop, I decided that today was my day to start again.

Jess and I stopped by The Grove first. I was good and only bought what I needed (size 3 circs), but of course I did a bit of yarn fondling before that.

Mmm. Yarn.

Anyway, then it was Whistlestop time. There were way more people than last time, and then my shy streak kicked into gear, but oh well. At least I wasn’t a total clam, right?

I got through the toe and part of the first pattern repeat before we took off, which about how much progress I wanted to make while we were there. I’ve decided that I quite like the YO short row method – it’s nowhere near as fiddly as the wrap method to me, and I’m certainly not as likely to break a needle doing the YO method, either.

I’ll probably work on the sock some more while watching Family Guy tonight. It most likely won’t take me very long to memorize the chart – once I have a pattern repeat or two under my belt, it’ll cement my visual memory of the chart into my brain. And the sock will go pretty quickly for me once I’ve got the pattern down.

Other UFOs are my shrug (still haven’t restarted the back) and my black lacy thingamajig; I found the latter again the other day, and chances are, I won’t touch it again until after I’ve moved. As for the shrug, I’ll try not to touch it until I get through one of the socks. That shrug will go fast once I get back to it, so I should still manage to get it done before I move.

I haven’t started my Mystery Stole yet, as I ordered the yarn (Shimmer, in the Morning Mist colorway) last week. It’ll probably arrive within the next couple of days. I realized that I knit rather loosely when I’m using alpaca, hence why I bought 3s for this project. Hopefully I won’t decide I want 2s… ^_^*

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So much for completion

Posted on 31 May 2005 by Kris

I was knitting along, making good progress on my little shrug… and then I decided that the back was still too big. I guess my gauge changed a bit once I had the whole thing on the needles.

Thankfully I don’t have to rip the whole thing. I’d left my scrap yarn in the sleeves when I joined it to the back. I’m still going to be frogging a good few inches, but at least the back goes pretty quickly.

Sleeves! Don’t mind all the dangling strands, I had the back in progress and the whole thing was on scrap yarn… I really won’t have to weave in that many ends!

Swatch for the back. It would really, really have helped to have the gauge for this listed in the pattern… *grumble*

In other news, I joined the Mystery Stole Along because the premise intrigues me. I’m not sure what yarn I’ll be using yet, though… maybe something from KnitPicks? Or maybe I’ll poke my head into a yarn store and pick something… though that might be dangerous because I’ll be tempted to buy more. ;-)

Speaking of yarn stores, Jess, Heather, and I went down to Bonita to check out Le Stitch. Which was pretty meh. Some of the stuff was pretty, but I don’t know how much of it I’d actually use.

Knitting things to do this week: finish Shimmer, work on test sock for Jess, buy yarn for stole. I’m being unusually single-minded about my crafting lately; since when do I only have one thing in progress? (Okay, so I cast on for the sock, but since I haven’t touched it since, that doesn’t really count!)

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