Unfreezing...

Ugh, has it really been four months? (As a side note, I'd like to give half a mo' to Andy of The Hunan Scooter, who shares my love of beginning posts after long layoffs with the old Jim Anchower "Hola amigos... been a long time since I rapped at ya." Early '90s Onion ftw.)

Best laid plans gang aft agley and all that. During my attempt to get some more pictorial life into this here entry, I was somewhat horrified to realize that my photo card reader seemed to be covered in something resembling dried marmalade. How did that happen???

But anyways. Where were we?

My Violets by the River shawl was going just swimmingly until approximately December 8. When my gentleman friend and I took a trip up to visit his family for Christmas stuffs, I worked feverishly during both the long car ride and the inevitable sitting around and schmoozing. I got so much done! Oh, how wonderful to only have six rows left on the twenty-row repeat of 400+ stitches. Oh, it'll totally be done by Christmas at this rate, or at least Mom's birthday on January 2!

OH CRAP I DID THE LAST TWO REPEATS BACKWARDS. ^&^%$#%$@!

She received a lovely Swedish calendar for Christmas, and it remains in hibernation. I believe I still need to do a little more surgery before forging ahead once more.

I did manage to finish the Koolhaas hat. My brother loves it and says it looks like the hippest qofi ever. (Pity he isn't Muslim.)

My Merging Colors scarf seems to be on needles that are too short. It is a pain in the rear to knit with its multiple ends getting in the way. Le sigh.

I started the Frosted Ferns doily in January, and it was going very well. I picked up some nice steel dpns and found that they worked WAY better than the stumpy birches I had lying around, so that rocked.

And then I broke up with the aforementioned gentleman friend, whose mother was the intended recipient, with about 10% completed.

Still, I think I'll eventually get back to it. (And me 'n' the boy have gotten back to friendly terms, so that's good.) I do like lace, especially the ridiculously tiny kind, and I have a mounting/framing plan that I think will make it look awesome. I hope to finish it and keep it for myself, so yay.

In the wake of the breakup, I went back to my mom's Noro cardigan, both for the speed of the knitting and the nice meditative stockinette. I'm almost done with the first sleeve, having ripped it out from last time, but it's getting to be boring as hell. Maybe I'll work on Violets a little before starting the second sleeve.

The aforementioned ex-gentleman friend mentioned, in a wonderfully honest conversation after the breakup, that it drove him crazy to see how I didn't finish stuff. Well, a) it's not his freakin' business, hmph! and b) he's probably right. I didn't have a real deadline on my mom's cardigan, but she did remind me that she would have liked to wear it when it's actually a little nippy out. (Last year. Oops.) I will stick with it. Really. And the Violets shawl really should be a Mother's Day present. She doesn't know it's coming.

Thrills and chills, as always... over and out.

Time for hats!

Ugh, was Monday grody out. Here I was, wearing just a fleece, and a cold, rainy hail started up just in time for my afternoon tromp around campus. To add insult to injury, my hat supply is nil. I have one manly striped chullo hat that everybody loves and asks me if I knit... sadly, it came from Target.

Shedir was kind of languishing, and you know what? It looked like crap. I don't know if it was the yarn (Cascade 220 -- I seriously think this skein is cursed; this is either the second or third hat it Does Not Want To Be) or the fact that I lost my place or the fact that blocking had better work miracles on that thing, because I had no definition. It just looked poopy, and I didn't feel like doing all those teeny little cables.

So last night I pulled up my Ravelry queue (oh, the joy!) and checked to see if I had a reasonably simple non-colorwork hat I could whip up in under a week. Turns out I did: the Parrotfish Topper, based on Cookie A's near-ubiquitous Pomatomus sock pattern. I have some leftover superwash fingering weight stuff in maroon, so it's perfect. Right now I'm done with the 10 rows for the cuff, and it just looks so cute and crisp with those snappy little ktbl ribs! Unfortunately, i worry that I have made a mistake in sizing, as I have a head that is, to quote Mike Myers, "like Sputnik," so we shall see whether a pretty pretty hat ends up on the head of me or someone smaller :P

The lovely and excellent Froggy helped me prioritize: hat for me, then baby presents for two important early-December babies, then Koolhaas.

As for Violets... well, I finished the center section, but then there's this weird stitch pickup thing that I don't really get because Hazel Carter was trying to be helpful but it just confused me. I think I might have it, but it doesn't matter -- I'm fighting with my mom again, and we all know I only work on it when I'm not mad. Grrr, grrrr! I'm sure I'll get to it next week or something, though; I just like a little cool-off period, and then life goes on.

Hello, hello!

I have taken to the very grad school pursuit of eating lunch in a locally owned coffee shop near campus. The WiFi is slightly spotty, but I make do. I have yet to find the perfect equilibrium of Awesome Chairs combined with Accessible Plug For Charger (I need at least an hour and a half for my plugless afternoon lecture), but I am here nonetheless. Perhaps me 'n' the blog will see a little more of each other.

This weekend was a good one for knitting. I did a little Violets here and there, but the main progress made involved deciding how big I actually wanted to make it. I think my mom likes slightly small shawls, while I tend toward giant blankets you can wrap yourself in :P Given that Violets has a wide band of edging around the sides, it's not very easy for me to envision how big the finished project will be. Still, between matching it up to a larger sample over at Sow's Ear and having a little discussion with TChemGrrl, I decided to go with 24 eyelet stamps across the top (you enlarge the pattern in increments of three, and the smallest size has 18). I just finished the 21-eyelet iteration, so it's 24 more long rows (8 rows per iteration) to go of the very simple eyelet pattern. Still, though, I always get motivated when I have the end in sight, so I'm very excited to be moving on.

Violets will be my mom's Christmas present. In terms of other holiday planning, my cousin's wife Khrisla found me on Facebook a few weeks back. She has an Etsy shop, and she has been promoting a campaign to buy handmade this holiday season. Given that I am a poor grad student with an overabundance of yarn lying around, I've decided to jump on the bandwagon and either make stuff (for my immediate family) or buy stuff from artisans. I have a lot of friends who make stuff, and I LOVE the hunt for just the right unique little presents, so I think this will be very fun.

****DEAR THELMA IF YOU EVER READ MY KNITTING BLOG DO NOT READ PAST THIS PART PLZ KTHX****

In terms of other stuff, I've decided to make Koolhaas for my brother. I love the hat and wanted to make it for someone, especially myself, but I think it will be great for my brother. He has that sort of style (in addition to a shavey head), and he loves the Team Zissou hat that I made him a few years ago. Now, of course I did not end up getting the yarn out of my stash (cheeky stash-plumper...) but I did pick up a wonderful skein of Dream In Color superwash worsted in a semi-solid color called Gothic Rose. (I'd link to the site, but their version is so washed out that it looks pink. It's more like a nice winey color; my gentleman friend pronounced it Fit For A Boy Hat). I think it'll work really well. The only thing I'm a bit concerned about is that a 16-inch unstretched hat seems a bit small for a person with a ginormous melon like myself and, I imagine, my brother. (Okay, more like an orange on a toothpick...)

The Team Zissou hat was made out of plain old Lion Wool. Knowing him, his likely method of cleaning is simply to never wash it, ever, but as he is Lead Fish Guy at a large Whole Foods, I imagine that washing would be nice sometime.

As for my dad... well, that vest is no closer to any stage of starting or completion, but who knows. Sow's Ear has just startd carrying Lamb's Pride Superwash, though, and I love how they're heathered. Somehow the Cascade 220 Superwash colors I see are always so bright and almost primary; I like a little more depth. So his stuff is still out to lunch. Oy.

I'll work on what I have, though, and I am hopeful that the recipients will like them.

Random note for later: I LOVE the Refined Aran from the new IK (not out yet).