Somebody To Love

This holds in life in general right now as well as for crafting. I’m so so unbelievably sick of all this dreary weather.

My copy of Color in Spinning arrived this morning, which is doing a lot to help with the doldrums. It’s such a great resource, but right now all I’m doing is looking at all the bright and pretty pictures and wishing it was like that outside right now.

I’m also thinking I need to start messing with colours that I normally don’t think to use. On Wednesday during weaving class I realized I inadvertently chose the same colours for my scarf that I used for my Endpaper Mitts last year. This is great because I will have matching outdoor wear, but it really cemented the fact that I’ve been in a bit of a rut lately.

I’ve got all of the orange ones done and most of the olive green ones. I’m halfway there! Unfortunately I’m working on a MySQL assignment at the moment and I was on a field trip to Delaware with my weaving class earlier so blocking and pictures will have to wait until tomorrow.

BUT! I might have finished a few more by then. It will be worth it, I promise. At least, it will if you’re as obsessed with cute little knitted leaves like I am.

ETA:

One of the normal-sized leaves being blocked:

One of the smaller leaves for the toe insert being blocked:

A gods-eye-view of my blocking setup:

I didn’t notice until afterwards that the towel I was using is the same colour as the main yarn for the socks.

So far so good. It’s been taking me roughly an hour to knit each leaf so far, so I’ve only got 8 of them done. I did one of the green ones for the toe and 7 of the orange ones so far. Once I finish the 8th orange one I’ll block them and take pictures.

These socks are going to be so great when they are done. I’m still at a loss when it comes to how to wear them though. It was brought up at the Knit London meetup this week and I still haven’t decided. I don’t want to wear them without shoes because I’m pretty sure the carpet in here would wear them out super-quick. But at the same time, shoes would do a lot of damage (my boots ripped a huge hole in my angora socks) and I still want to be able to show them off. I think I need to get used to the idea of wearing them around the apartment, or getting clear shoes for the summer.

omg omg omg! I checked the mail on my way back in from the doctor, and look what I found:

Even the kit is a thing of beauty. The pattern is incredibly detailed and includes colour photos of some of the harder-to-explain steps. I’m so excited!

I’m not going to start it until later today when I finish setting up my loom for weaving class, but I think it’s safe to assume that half the things I was going to do tonight are pushed to tomorrow.

ETA: The yarn came wound into hanks, so before bed I took the time to wind them all into centre-pull balls. At first I was using my thumb, but there was too much of the purple to do that comfortably so I used my spindle as a nostepinne.

Before:

After:

“I’d have sworn that with time thoughts of you would leave my head.
I was wrong.” — Neil Diamond

Marin said today that “the Harlot is to knitting trends what Oprah is to book sales” and she’s not far off on that. You see, on Wednesday Stephanie posted about Vintage and people started snapping it up. I ordered it in the Pinot colourway yesterday. The funny thing is, I’m not usually one to go out and buy things just because someone makes them popular. I don’t buy books that Oprah endorses, I tend not to follow trends that Stephanie does either. This isn’t a case of that even though it might seem that way on the surface.

What happened in this case was that Stephanie’s blog was the means through which the gods finally caught me. When I went to the website and saw these socks I swear they were daring me to knit them. I don’t back down from a challenge. Especially when it comes in the form of knitted socks. This might sound like crazy-talk, but I get the sense that these socks are the embodiment of the Dionysian spirit. It’s not just the subject matter. It’s because of the arrogance I sense coming from these socks. They know they are magnificent but at the same time they also know they’re going to make you let go of your fear and inhibitions, make you get into another mindspace and do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do in order to get them done.

Now, I don’t need to commit hubris against the knitting gods and have things come crashing down on my head, but at the same time I realize there’s a lot of work involved here and I refuse to let these socks beat me. I tend to see it as a way of putting my skills to good use serving a higher purpose, whatever that turns out to be.

For those of you that didn’t know, I’ve been unable to log in to my Yahoo! account all summer. When our Rogers account was cancelled it never properly unlinked from their system, and when I try to go through the steps online to do it nothing happens. It’s still doing this. I’ve emailed, called, and IM’d Rogers and Yahoo! both, and all they do is shuffle me around. Rogers says they have no record of me anymore so it’s Yahoo!’s problem, Yahoo! says it’s Rogers’ problem for deleting all record of me. I don’t care anymore, because there has been some small measure of success finally.

The thing is, I have two Yahoo! accounts, and although the one I’m locked out of is my oldest one (and thus most well known) I don’t use it anymore except for my Flickr photos. This was a huge problem for me, because Flickr only lets you assign a custom url to an account once, and you can’t take it back for use with another account. So in order to keep my http://www.flickr.com/photos/heavenlyevil URL I’d have to get my Flickr associated with another Yahoo! ID.

This normally is very easy. You just sign in and fill out the form and confirm that you own both Yahoo! IDs and are thus allowed to make the switch. Which means I couldn’t do this, obviously, not being able to get into the first account at all.

I emailed the Flickr people and they looked into it for me. It took them some time to confirm my information and that I really was locked out of my account, but once that was established I got an email back saying that they’d separated my Flickr from any Yahoo! ID so I could go back and attach it as if it had always been separate. Huzzah!

This I did, so now I have my pretty pictures again and can add more finally, after not being able to for ages. It’s exciting, see, because there’s this new site, Ravelry, that I’ve been a member of for most of the summer and haven’t been able to make full use of since I couldn’t link my pictures.

Really, I’m excited because I have yet another avenue for showing off my yarn stash. Unfortunately, a bunch of the projects I’ve finished this summer have been gifted away and I don’t have pictures, but for the rest they will be up soon for those of you who are also on Ravelry. Exciting, yes?

ETA: Well, now that I’ve said something I get an email from Yahoo! saying they’ve fixed everything and I can get back in my account now. For the trouble I think I’m getting my stuff out of that account and deleting it. All I get is spam from it anymore anyhow.

I’ve got a new spindle that is very beautiful and well-balanced which is helping immensely to improve my technique.

I’ve got the money for a spinning wheel and just need to get ahold of the not-so-local yarn store that sells them so I can go pick one up.

I’m making some progress on several of the pairs of socks that I started for myself last year.

I’ve started a pair of socks for Dean that is coming along swimmingly.

I’m working on Peacock Tapestry again.

I got a haircut that looks nothing like any haircut I’ve ever had before.

I finished knitting Monkey on Sunday and I have to say these are my new favourite socks. They are so comfortable and warm it’s great.

(click for insanely-large detail pic)

I’m a little obsessed with this pattern now since it looks so complicated but is very easy to do and remember. Though I will admit at first my sizing was a little off and I had to go up a needle size for the cuff. Plus as I was going I kept getting distracted and had to frog a few rows here and there since I lost track of my place.

Still, I love this pattern and see it becoming like Pomatomus and the Jaywalker sock patterns in the sense that every knitter in the blogosphere will have done it at some point.

Such patterns really are an addiction.

I started yet another pair of socks. I had to frog one of the ones I did before, since the socks were supposed to be hand-washed and accidentally went through full wash/dry cycle. Since I’m not quite ready to redo that pair, I started some with KnitPicks’ Sock Memories in Easter. I bought this yarn at the end of last month when they came out with their circular needles, since I was buying a couple pairs of those and I didn’t want to waste all the shipping costs on just two needles.

Those needles are amazing, by the way. I like them better than the Addi Turbos, and I’ve been in love with those for months. The most notable difference is that the points on the KnitPicks needles are sharper, and the needles themselves have slightly more weight to them. This makes them the perfect needles for me, since those were my two main problems with the Addis. I was having trouble with stitches splitting because of the blunt points, and the needles were getting bent because of the death-grip I have when I’m stressed. Because of the added weight I don’t hold these needles as tightly, and they are holding up much better as a result.

The current pair of socks I’m doing two at a time on one circular, from the toe-up. When winding the yarn into balls I noticed that the colourway was going in the same direction and the ends almost started in the same spot, so I’m making these socks to match, as well. Both methods are new for me. I’ve tried two socks at once on two circulars before, but I couldn’t stand all the needle ends hanging around everywhere. This way is working out nicely. I’m using the same length needle I always do - 32″ - and it seems to work well for both one sock and two. I know most people seem to like 40″ needles, but they bother me with all the extra cable floating around. It’s possible that when I get to the heel and such I’ll miss the extra length, but I think for the most part I’m fine doing things this way.

I went to Cloth & Clay on Tuesday to get some cable needles and ended up buying more sock yarn. I bought some to make Dean a pair, it’s mostly shades of red and grey because his friends keep poking fun at his bright red socks.

The other is a cotton yarn in peach, red and burgundy that I’ve been staring at for months. It’s going to be a while before I get anything else. I tend to say that a lot and then randomly grab something, but this time I can’t afford any more than those. The rest of the money I have goes towards the new computer.

I’m glad that I could get this yarn, I really like it, and it’s a way to try out some of the cotton socks for the summer and see how they compare. Most people seem to prefer wool year-round, but some swear by their cotton socks, so we shall see. They have wool in them anyway, so it’s not like they are just cotton.

I resisted the urge today to buy some cotton/elastic blend yarn from Elann. It’s hard when I usually spend $15-$20 on the yarn for socks and this stuff is going for $6. But it will have to wait until later in the year, or next summer. I’m pretty sure they’ll still be selling it for roughly the same price then.

On a good note, I’m forcing myself to learn combination knitting. I find knitting and purling that way easier than knitting English style, but I got intimidated by the increases and decreases, and the specialty stitches that patterns sometimes call for. Really, the trick is just learning exactly how each stitch its formed because then you can do it any way. Once I get through this, my hands will thank me. It’s a faster and more even way of knitting, and since I’m using circular needles now it will save my hands as much stress as possible. Things are looking up.