A dollar short.

I have photos for you people (notice that I boldly assume the plural) and projects to share, but I can't find my camera cord. In the meantime, I encourage you to imagine a finished RCC Eclipse sock and a finished Child's French sock, as well as a pair of mittens about 3/4 of the way done.

the fruits of my leisure

I (finally!) have some new listings to share. A pair of them, in fact. They're nothing too different as I'm just getting warmed up again, but it felt nice to get out the supplies again after leaving them so long neglected (especially the ones that accumulated during the paper-writing blitz). I've got a huge stash of briolettes waiting, so I fear there is much wire-wrapping ahead....



Aside from the jewelry making, I have also been knitting quite
intensely this week, knitting with a goal in mind, for once. I had decided awhile back I wanted to make a tank top and for a long time I vacillated between the Honeymoon Camisole from Knitty and the Summertime Tunic, one of the free patterns offered by Interweave Knits, but a week ago I came across this pattern for a lace camisole and knew it was perfect. I took this picture of my progress a couple days ago, but now, three discs of TV on DVD later, I'm only about 3" from the top (it's knit in the round from the bottom up). And so my goal is to finish it and wear it before it gets so hot here that I can't bear to put on any clothes at all.

We Take Manhattan

In all the excitement over the new kitten (her name is Hazel and so far we have learned that she might like yarn, which is good because we have a lot of yarn), our LYS visits in NYC (are you down with the lingo?) have gone undocumented. Yesterday we hit four knitting stores in Manhattan:

1. School Products, where we each got some amazing Koigu sock yarn. I remain puzzled about the name, as they really do sell only yarn. They seem to have good deals on higher-end fibers. I have really only shopped extensively for sock yarn and worsted weight wool & alpaca, so I can't tell you how good the deals are. They did have gray worsted-weight superwash wool for $12/lb. It's also available on their web site. Koigu is more or less the only sock yarn they have, but if you're just going to carry one, that's a good choice. I haven't shopped very much for Koigu, but it is really delightful: soft, squishy, and spun really well. We were the only people in the store, which was actually pretty spacious for a Manhattan shop.
   
2. Yarn Connection, which was okay--they had some reasonably priced cotton that Lilyriver briefly considered for a tank top, though she ultimately decided against it. Very limited sock yarn selection--looked like maybe they were a little low on stock? Business seemed pretty slow.
   
3. Knitty City, which was our favorite. They had a lot of sock yarn: Claudia Handpainted, a little Koigu, a few colors of Lorna's, Louet Gems, a limited selection of Regia & Trekking--all for the typical retail prices. I didn't buy anything, though I was very much tempted by the Claudia Handpainted in "Stormy Day." The shop looks like it has a lot of customers and a lively group of employees teaching classes.
   
4. Yarn Company, which did not appear to have sock yarn. We didn't have time to ask them if this was really true or if we just missed something, but in the words of the immortal Keanu Reeves...Whoa. Okay, I totally should have known; they don't have any on their web site. There weren't too many people in the shop except a clique-ish group of women knitting around a table, and they ignored us--if it's important to you to get a "Hello" when you walk in the door, this might not be the place for you.
   

We also hit a really excellent used bookstore. Lilyriver found five volumes of Va. Woolf's diaries and I got a couple of novels I'd been wanting to read (Grendel and The Thin Place). So, in short, we came back with some sock yarn (and a little lace weight) and books, neither of which we have room for. After this whirlwind shopping tour, we had an excellent dinner with Susan, who kindly agreed to meet up with us after a long day at work.

We missed Seaport Yarns and PURL Soho, both of which were farther south in Manhattan than we wanted to go. PURL, especially, is supposed to be great, and their web site promises a fine selection of Lorna's Laces.

I do not need, nor should I buy, anymore yarn for a long time, but if I did...I probably wouldn't make a point of getting it from a LYS. It's sacrilege, I know, and I do understand the value of supporting local businesses and microcommunities, etc., etc., but you really can't beat the selection you can find online--and I really enjoy bargain hunting.

Tiny kittens: good for decoupage?

Don't tell Joe, but I think this kitten might get a sweater.

7x7x7x7x7x7x7x7x7x7x7x7x7x7

1. I learned to knit my first year in college in a class with Lilyriver and Rachel. I was the last person in the class to figure out how to do it and I'm pretty sure the woman had despaired that I ever would. But I did, eventually, and that winter I knit approximately 430284038204 hats.
   
2. I read Jurassic Park 11 times in fifth grade. I rewrote (or, rather, began a rewrite of) Jurassic Park to incorporate a new character named Liz (then my favorite name), who was a thirteen-year-old math genius (I wanted to be Malcolm). I wrote about fifty pages in double spaced, 12 pt., dark blue New Courier bold.
   
3. Until I hit seventh grade, I did all my computer writing in 12 pt. dark blue New Courier bold. ETA: My mother expressed some concern for my font choice, but I reassured her that I now actually kind of hate Courier. I do, however, like faux-antique typewriter fonts.
   
4. I also began a story about two identical twins, one good and one evil. Their names were Dana and Delaney. (My mom loves China Beach.)
   
5. When I was very young, I had nightmares about an episode of It's Garry Shandling's Show, in which Garry is trapped in a deep manhole in front of his house with a broken leg. I'm afraid to look it up and find out I was actually, like, 12.
6. I like to read signs backwards. I have decided that if I ever have a soap opera, I am going to set it in a town called Timil Deeps.
   
7. I don't really think the cat needs a sweater, but I definitely want Lilyriver to knit him one.
   

tagalong

Since Rainsend tagged our blog (I feel so included! I guess blog rings really work after all!), I've decided that replying should be my first official act of summer. Technically, summer started yesterday after we turned in our papers, and I guess the Goodwill excursion, TV marathon, and ice cream binges were pretty summery acts...but this is the first day entirely free of academic writing, so here is some entirely non-academic writing. Here we go.

7 Things About Jellenifer:

7. (This one has a special limited audience.) I am not now, nor have I ever been, knitting the kitten a sweater.

6. I'm a terrible, hesistant, erratic driver. It's a miracle I've never been in a real accident. I think the problem began early: at 9, I ran my bike into a stop sign. (No, they don't have moving stop signs in Ohio.)

5. If I listen to music while walking, I have to walk in rhythm (with my left foot on the down beat). This strangely does not apply when I'm jogging.

4. I twist my hair, sometimes even in public, sometimes even in class. I worry it's an obnoxious habit, but I can't stop. I'm doing it right now.

3. In high school I ate an orange every day as part of my lunch. I was really proud that I could peel them all in one piece, and I liked the smell of the peels so much I would save little bits of them in my locker and coat pockets.

2. If I sit in one position too long and especially if I squat down to look at a bottom bookshelf or something else low to the ground, I black out when I stand up and it takes a good ten or twenty seconds for my vision to return. The official internet self-diagnosis is orthostatic hypotension, but I think mostly I just need to drink more water.

1. A confession: I know so few other bloggers that the second half of this process (the tagging of other bloggers) will have to be deferred until I can find some people to tag...

I think this just means I'm bored with my paper.

You appear to be a Knitting Adventurer. You are through those knitting growing pains and feeling more adventurous. You can follow a standard pattern if it's not too complicated and know where to go to get help. Maybe you've started to experiment with different fibers and you might be eyeing a book with a cool technique you've never tried. Perhaps you prefer to stick to other people's patterns but you are trying to challenge yourself more. Regardless of your preference, you are continually trying to grow as a knitter, and as well you should since your non-knitting friends are probably dropping some serious hints, these days.http://marniemaclean.com
Take this quiz!

An elitist in every genre.

What Kind of Knitter Are You? You appear to be a Knitting Purist. You are an accomplished knitter producing beautiful pieces with a classic feel. You sometimes lament losing half of your local yarn shop to garish novelty yarns. Perhaps you consider fun fur scarves the bane of knitting society and prefer to steer new knitters towards the wool and cotton blends. Some might call you a bit of an elitist but you know that you've been doing this craft long enough to respect the history behind it and honor it with beautiful piece that can last a lifetime. http://marniemaclean.com Take this quiz!

Summer preview edition!

Pretty soon, faithful Reader, there will be more posts of joy for you. For example, I have finished one of my stripey socks and am about to turn the heel on the other, and I'm about halfway done with the foot of my Knitting Vintage sock, and--and!--Lilyriver has successfully done a short-row heel on her Knitting Vintage sock. We have plenty of projects in store which, no doubt, will be copiously, and perhaps needlessly, blogged for you, including a tank top, felted clogs, and jewelry from Lilyriver, some mittens and a lace scarf from me*, socks socks SOCKS, perhaps a Clapotis or two...and maybe even more yarn dyeing, if you're lucky.

In the meantime, I will offer you a little Googletainment in the form of a keyword that someone used to get to our blog:

liver of sulfur silver mirror

*And, god help me, I have the pattern and the yarn picked out for my first sweater. But we'll see if I get there any time soon. This will not come as a surprise to anyone who knows me, but I really enjoy endlessly planning projects, possibly more than actually doing them. For an example of a more responsible crafter, we might look to Lilyriver, who wisely looks no more than a project or two into the future.

Intersession

Phew. I've finished my third final paper and I'm feeling just absolutely unable to start the last one right now, so in the meantime, I bring you this photo of all the crafty progress I've made in probably the last....oh, god who knows how long. This the "Child's First Sock in Shell Pattern" from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks, which is such a wonderful book I just want to crawl inside it and knit my way out again, which I will do in T minus 6 days...

The yarn I'm using is some weird superwash wool that according to its label is from Germany but looks as though its been on the shelf at the LYS long enough to actually qualify these socks as vintage. I chose it because I liked the reddish brown color and because, as the Bolter puts it, "it was the only viable sock yarn" in the whole store.

Dialectic dichotomy word salad.

Good news: I kitchenered the toe for my first sock out of the Regia Canadian Classic Eclipse...Christ almighty, I need to learn a shorthand way of writing that out, because I also have RCFC Winnipeg and RCC Brasil and it's hard enough to keep track of my 43280483209 potential projects. Anyway! Good news: I kitchenered the toe for my first sock out of blahblahblah.

Bad news: Um, I somehow dropped a stitch while doing it. I may not be an adventurous or particularly skilled knitter, but I have kitchenered a lot of toes and haven't dropped a stitch doing it before. I will admit that I was up until 5:30 last night grading exams (stupidly, so stupidly; totally my fault I was up that late) and today I'm wandering around in a bit of a fog. I was walking to the kitchen to refill my coffee mug and took a drink of what was left in the cup and actually somehow forgot how to swallow properly. I definitely dribbled coffee down the front of my shirt. I do that on a good night's sleep, though, as Lilyriver will undoubtedly attest.

Good news, the sequel: Dropped stitch aside, the sock looked really cute with one of my many, many clogs.

Bad news, the sequel: But I totally had to rip it back. I frogged about two inches of the damn thing. I probably could have rigged something up, but I figured I may as well do it right. We'll see how long this kind of ethical crafting lasts.

Good news, Part III, and unless it's Prisoner of Azkaban, you know that's not really a good thing: This will allow me to correct a couple of other errors. First of all, one of my feet is slightly longer than the other (like, by a quarter of an inch or so), and I always forget which it is, and apparently, while sizing this sock, I picked the wrong one. So the sock worked on one foot, but it was a stretch, so to speak, on the other, unless I wanted to risk its untimely death. Secondly, and this is why I ripped it back so far, there were a couple of loose stitches that I had hoped would even out when I washed the socks, but...in for a penny, in for a pound.

I hope these socks appreciate what I've done for them. I am so tired of this yarn, you guys.

The latest from Lilyriver Labs.

Invisible sock yarn!

Some assembly required.
Specs and ordering info to follow.

Knitting that's always already being (having been?) done.

Sock WIP #1
Plain stockinette pattern, Regia Canadian Fashion Colors Eclipse.
Note also the wimping out on the short row heel.

Sock WIP #2
Hetero life partner to the above.

Sock WIP #3
Trust me on this one, Reader; it's the Child's French Sock. The yarn is Chinese; it came from a destasher on Etsy. It's way prettier than my knitting, alas.

The other shoe drops.

After all the business about the sock patterns I wanted to knit, I cast on tonight for an entirely different sock--a pattern called Child's French Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks (again, not a pattern for children, depsite the name). I'm doing it up in a Jawoll superwash that's kind of a spring green. I'm kind of in love with the yarn. Also, I love that Jawoll comes in cute tiny skeins and I don't have to hand wind it. Anyway, I did about ten rows of the ribbing at the top during a couple of episodes of Arrested Development...and will probably now have to abandon the sock for the next month while I write my papers. I do still have my other two plain stockinette socks going, and those should be good for study breaks.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I fail at having a reasonably-lengthed attention span.

Edited to add: Wait, I actually did have this one on my list. Congratulations, me. I guess?

about time

I'm so pleased because I've finally been able to list a new item in my shop after a ridiculously long dry spell. And for the first time in weeks, one of my ideas actually worked -- and worked both times! So at least the time I should have spent reading wasn't totally wasted.

Here, then, is my second pair of silly space-themed earrings. We think they're almost what you might even venture to call "funky."

Part Two: Sock Patterns, or Socks As Traffic Violations

I think I've decided what kind of socks I want to make with my Lorna's Laces: Jaywalkers, by Grumperina. I would like to take a moment to register my annoyance with people/publications who do their sample socks in variegated yarn. You cannot see what a garment looks like if it's done in busy yarn! I mean, my LL yarn is by no means for the faint of heart, but...I'm just knitting for myself. I only know really what the Jaywalkers are really supposed to look like because tons of people have knitted them. At any rate, it turns out that someone on Flickr has already done Jaywalkers in the LL Motherlode colorway, so you, Reader, and I can have an idea of what my proposed Jaywalkers will look like (I hope). The pattern, in case it isn't clear, makes zig zag stripes; normally, the yarn would knit up something like this. I have no clue what that person did to make the yarn photograph like it has a cold, but the colors are truer in the Jaywalker photo.

Part One: Sock Patterns...no, don't run away! Come back!

Um, so I've been looking at sock patterns like crazy lately, mostly because of the massive quantities of sock yarn I've been buying. Trolling for sock patterns and yarn does not equal actually knitting socks, but for the next month, what with the papers and whatnot, my knitting will be sparse and boring. (I cast on for the leg of the mate of the Regia Canadian Colors Eclipse sock I've been working on--no, the first one's not done yet, for, though I decided to go with the simple flap heel, I have not gotten any farther than knitting the flap for it--so I could have something to work on during the movie I projected last Wednesday. Between that, some library knitting, and the pilgrimage to the Princeton* library yesterday, I have maybe 3-4 inches done. My dilemma now is that dropped from 2.5mm needles on the leg to 2.0mm for the foot seems to be a bit too much of a difference, so I think that I'll move up to 2.25 mm needles after I turn the heel. A tighter fabric is better for the heel anyway, right? That would mean, however, that I will have used needles of four different sizes at various stages of this sock, which is ridiculous. Anyway! I hope to continue to plug away at these socks whilst I work on my papers.)

In any case, I thought I'd assemble a list of some patterns I'd like to try, and perhaps the largely silent, but copious (she says optimistically), readers of this blog may care to weigh in (anonymously if necessary) on which they find appealing and what they definitely do not.

I have Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Sock Patterns, and I love nearly all the patterns; from it, I'm especially interested in:

1. Gentlemen's Socks. This is my favorite out of the book; the stitch pattern is understated and visually interesting. I'd probably do these in a similar kind of yarn--I am really in love with yarn that's plied with two colors like the Lana Grossa yarn because it produces such a neat heathered effect. I don't have any of the Lana Grossa yarn because--well, if you know me, you know that my buying habits are often perplexing, in that I like to stalk things that I really want and not buy them for a long time, buying, instead, other, cheaper things that are sort of like what I want but are not quite good enough. Luckily, all yarn, some of the more outlandish jacquard patterns notwithstanding, is "good enough," so I can wait until I find a fine deal. Maybe.
2. Miranda Sock; on a model. This is my second favorite pattern. I think I'd do this one in a single-color yarn, or at least a subtly-variegated one. I hate the calf shaping on the sock, though--why is that necessary? It's not as tall as a knee sock. Unless I'm feeling like I really want to learn how to do calf shaping, I'll just use the stitch pattern.
3. Child's French Sock; another picture. Nancy Bush has adapted this pattern for a child's sock to fit a larger foot. I have the perfect yarn for it: some Chinese red/subtly blue-plied sock yarn I got for a song from a destasher on Etsy.

That's all for now, Reader.

*Lilyriver has referred to Princeton as the "pleasure palace of the privileged," which is as apt as it is alliterative.

straight to the source

The Bolter swears it will never come to this, but if we ever become the kind of fiber artists who want to cut out the middlemen -- ALL of the middlemen -- I've found a supplier for us.

*shrugs*

Well, the shrug is finished, and I think its name pretty much sums up how I feel about it (although it does look nice on the lingerie/yarn chest we inherited last weekend). Everything went according to plan and it was incredibly simple to make, but I'm just not in love with the color or the ruffles on the sleeves, which are the very elements that sparked my enthusiasm for the project to begin with. I keep imagining it in black with nice understated cuffs, which I think is just proof that I really do have a fashion sense as boring as my younger sister always says it is -- as if I need another black layer in my wardrobe! But the ruffles were fun to make at least, and I did come away very impressed with the Lamb's Pride yarn, which feels soft yet substantial against the skin. As you can see in the sleeve detail, even the simple 1x1 rib in this pattern shows up well, so I can imagine more complicated stitch patterns would look really sharp. If I make any interesting (or unbloggably boring) scarves next winter, I will probably use this yarn again. In fact, maybe I should just sew up the rest of the shrug and keep it as a nice tube scarf...

Anyway, the shrug is done, long live the shorts! Luckily I seemed to have coordinated my knitting projects so that I am never without something in pink to work on. Last night I finished the crotch increases on my shorts, divided the round into the two legs, and did the cable cast-on that forms one side of the crotch seam. This was my first encounter with the cable cast-on, and I have to say we did not exactly hit it off. For some reason the plys (?) of my yarn kept coming apart as I was making the new stitches. But I muddled through and now I think I could finish these damn shorts in one or two good TV marathons, which is exciting but also a little unsettling because I have no idea what I want to knit next. Perhaps something that will make me look cuter in pictures...?

Labyrinth.

Well, Reader, there has been knitting, but there has not been productive knitting--at least by me. Lilyriver finished her lovely shawl and should make an appearance with it on soon enough. The lace scarf, I'm sorry to say, is going back in my box until I can give it my full attention. Ready, set, May 25.

As soon as my camera battery has been replaced, I'll post pictures of the haul Lilyriver and I got from my grandmother's craft stash. I am pretty pumped about using her needles, especially some of the lovely wooden ones. We also took home her beautiful hardwood lingerie chest, and it's the nicest thing we currently have in our apartment...so we're using it to store yarn.

Learning that my classes today were cancelled, I decided not to get a jumpstart on the papers looming like vultures over my head and instead learn how to make short-row heels. Seven hours later (the seven hours, I'll note, includes frequent yarn-browsing breaks), I have a short-row heeled sock. I do not have a picture of it because my camera battery is dead. I do not have joy coming off me in waves because the heel is full of holes. I'm itching, itching to rip it out and do the usual flap-gusset heel, even though I know I'll never get the short-row business down if I give up now. My short-row heel isn't hideous, and may, with a few clever picked up stitches, be serviceable, but it's not as pretty as all the ones I looked at on Flickr. Mine has this problem and this* problem. The latter problem is fixable through picked up stitches. The former really isn't. It's gotta come out. The only thing that I need to decide is what I'm going to replace it with.

But see, what's killing me is that I've already done the heel three times. For my first two tries, I used two different tutorials and couldn't quite make heads or tails of them. For my third try, I used this one by cosmicpluto, and I know--I know--that there's nothing wrong with the tutorial.

But no, I'll persevere. I'll rip it out a do it a fourth time. But not today. Dear god, not today.

*The other thing that makes me sad about that green patterned sock is that it's yet another discontinued Knit Picks Simple Stripe yarn that I covet. Covet, covet, covet.