Water Under the Bridge

Oh, my! have I been remiss in my blogging! I do apologise, and offer the following lengthy post, divided into segments, as atonement.


July 2/3


This is Chart A of Clue I of the Mystery Stole 3 completed. The sharper-eyed among you may have noticed that it's on a different needle than the previous pic. I had bought a brand-new pair of 14" Inox #4s for this project, eagerly awaited their arrival in the mail, and cast on with them immediately. By the time I got to the point of where the previous picture of progress was taken, I had fallen completely in hatred. They were horrible! They were sticky and unpredictably grabby, and I was constantly wrestling with the stitches. A very nice lady on the KnitList was destashing, and offered a bunch of old needles for sale for a reasonable price, so I bought them. Among them was a pair of 10" Brittany birch #4s, to which I immediately switched the stole. Wow! The Brittanys are smooth, yet grippy, and bent in exactly the same places my own hands would bend them. I like them as much as I hate the Inox. The stole is proceeding much more easily now.


July 4


Of all the words written regarding 'the nation's birthday' this year, I found the Tsarina's celebration of her grandfather's birthday to be the most meaningful. Russia is a poorer nation today because so many people like her family left there. The USA is a far richer nation because so many of them, and so many like them from everywhere in the world, chose to come here. Happy Birthday to the melting pot!


July 5


Here is Chart A of the stole completed, once again. It doesn't look much different from the previous picture, does it? It is, though. In fact, it's a completely different piece of fabric! What happened was, a cat decided the knitting was an extremely dangerous and fierce dragon. In the process of bravely attacking and killing this threat to domestic harmony, the knitting was destroyed past any hope of salvage. That'll teach me not to Put Things Away. In a way, I'm rather more pleased than not. I never did like the way the bottom point looked on version the first, and I fought it and fought it and fought it, every stitch of the way. Version the second has been much better behaved, and knitted up about three times faster than the first. I actually got ALL of this done in one (rather lengthy, I admit) sitting! Don't the pearls look pretty? They probably are too large, but I don't care. I like them!


July 6-10


I've done it to myself again. I follow links in blog posts. I find out all sorts of fascinating things that way, and end up in some strange places, when the links have links and so ad infinitum. (The 'net is quite possibly the greatest invention since the printing press, IMHO.) In this particular case, I saw a picture, and fell madly in love with the subject. I posted on both the KnitList and the MS3 list (which grew from just over 4,000 to 6,910 people after the Harlot blogged about it! USA Today interviewed Melanie yesterday.) trying to find more information about it. No immediate answers, but a LOT of people expressed interest in knowing the answers when I got them. The result is I am now a List Mom! The picture on the home page is the one that started it all. As of this morning, 384 people seem to share my passion. I wish this blog had as many readers!


July 11


And this brings us up to date. In between e-mails, and ListMom chores, I have been knitting, and Clue 1, all 100 rows of it, is finished! Here it is:



It's only finger-patted into shape, of course, and will look much, much better when blocked out properly. I took this photo at 2:30 this morning. I somehow believe that I will end up adding the "slow bee" button to the blog, though. I'm still way behind, unless I can complete all 50 rows of Clue 2 before Friday morning, when Clue 3 is released, anyway. Care to estimate the odds of that actually happening?

Before your eyes, that icon of knitterly propriety, the Swatch.

This one is for the grape heather socks I'm starting. It's telling me that I'm knitting 6.25 st. and 8 rows per inch in stockinette. This is very good, as when I was knitting the Baby Sockie, I was getting 7.5 st. and 9 rows, so I've loosened up quite nicely. However, I'm only knitting the toes, heels, and soles in stockinette, so the Swatch is only of marginal use. I don't really feel like knitting another three swatches to take measurements of the various textures I'm going to be using on the rest of the sock. So, I'm going to use the impirical method to get these socks to fit properly.

This is really a very simple procedure. Every so often, at points where, knowing my feet as I do, I think it's needful, I'm going to try the sock on. If it goes on smoothly, so much the better. If it seems a bit tight, I'll increase a couple of stitches in the next row or two. If it's *really* tight, I'll frog back a ways and start increasing there.

However, the socks are going to be put on hold for a short while, as the mail yesterday brought to me the first two of many models I'm going to be cross-stitching for a designer just getting started in Germany. This is actual *paid* work, people! Sheckles in the travel fund. Not many, alas, but better than none. Therefore, I shall be cross-stitching for the next few days. I can't even post pictures for you, as the designs haven't been published yet. "Secret" projects!

Sailing, sailing

The Great and Powerful Wizard of Tsocks has spoken, and I have heeded. As a result, I am now happy with the completed short-row toe!

I'm sorry this picture is as blurry-eyed as I am this morning, but as you can, I hope, see, no holes, no weirdness, just nice smooth sock! It was my intention to knit a few more rows, then turn a heel, but two rows of juggling all the stitch holders and small DPNs in order to knit in the round on a pair of SPs was enough. I'm sure I know what I'm doing now, and see no point in repeating it.

So what was the magic solution? Very simple - instead of worrying about that last wrapped and slipped stitch at the other end of the WS row, go ahead and pick up the stitches for the top of the sock from the provisional cast-on, knit across them, and work that last stitch on the WS row as a knit stitch now, then continue on knitting across the stitches for the sole of the sock. Simple, obvious, once it's pointed out - and a lesson in not overly complicating things!

So instead of juggling stitch holders, I started swatching for the first "real" sock! Memo to self - do *not* fall asleep whilst knitting on DPNs: the face making contact with the sharp pointy ends of all those things is not a pleasant way to reawaken! I'm swatching again, even though this sock is knit in the same yarn as the Baby Sockie, just a different color (Grape heather), because my tension has, I think, changed considerably. As the Great and Powerful etc. pointed out to me earlier, I was knitting very tightly, and I didn't realize *how* tightly until I did the ribbing on the Baby Sockie. I loosened it up considerably, so need to re-swatch.

I will be posting progress reports on the sock, but not in nearly the detail as this angst over the short-row technique. I'm going to try to establish some sort of schedule, so knitting posts will be one day, embellished crazy quilting another, cross-stitch a third, and so forth. (Is that laughter I hear from up there in the peanut gallery?)

Be of good heart - it's Tuesday, and you survived yesterday!

I am Determined

I refuse to be defeated by this short-row toe and heel business. If I can teach myself how to knit Aran cables and intarsia, this simply cannot be too difficult to be accomplished. Can it???

I have to confess right now that the picture of the Baby Sockie is of the good side, where the mistakes aren't really too obvious. You don't want to see the other side, if it still existed, which it doesn't. At any rate, it seems clear to me that I am behind the learning curve on this arcane art. So, I'm going to let the whole wide world, or such small portion of it as has discovered this blog, teach me! Clever, yes?

What I have done is a crochet provisional cast on of 28 stitches, using Caron Simply Soft and US#10 SP needles, so everything should be real easy to see, provided I can take a half-way decent picture that is. At the end of this section, there will be a short interval until I can find and buy a set of #10 DPNs (unless I get REALLY stupid, and slip stitches on and off smaller DPNs so that I'd end up knitting each 7 stitch section from and onto the SPs. I may get that desperate, but I hope not!)



The first picture is of that cast-on, then, switching to the "real" yarn, k 1 row, turn, and p 1 row. Simple enough, and I'm confident that there are no errors as yet.











Picture the second is of that same swatch, 14 rows later, with 7 stitches wrapped and slipped on each end, and 14 live stitches in the middle.

This is the left-hand side of the swatch, with the 7 wrapped and slipped stitches, plus some of the live ones.










This is the right-hand side of the swatch, with the seven wrapped and slipped stitches on the right needle, and ready to start picking up the slipped stitches again.








Again, I am reasonably confident that I am still on the right track, with no errors. Now it's time to start picking up the wrapped stitches and knitting them back into the work. That's the next post.