MarQ1

Cool. Dry. Finally.

Feather & Fan

This is Feather & Fan, in the alternate version with the yarn-over cable. I am somewhat happy at how it turned out. I am also happy that I have actually finished it. The last 20% took forever.

One hundred twenty thousand plus stitches, followed by a crocheted bind-off that was less painful than I expected, but still excruciatingly small. I do admire it though. And I keep looking at other things I could bind off with miniscule chains.

Above you see the blocked product. Which could have been better done, I know. There is no place in this apartment large enough to pin out a 72″ diameter shawl. I had to make a frame, staple an old sheet to it and baste the shawl to the sheet with upholstery thread—which accounts for the slight imperfections in the directions of the fans. It’s not really noticeable off the frame.

I took it to the LYS this afternoon; I had promised to bring it in some time ago, and I wanted to reward myself for having finished it (which I did, unfortunately). Yes, I enjoyed being praise for my knitting by other knitters. Best afternoon I’ve had in ages.

A Round of Apologies

I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you, particularly those of you who wrote thinking I might have dropped off the face of the earth. I didn’t; I just got stuck. Stuck at work. Stuck on F&F. Stuck in a rut of procrastination. I am a champion of procrastination.

I’m now on 8 straight months of procrastinating about going to the gym. Soon I should be able to roll there. I have been biking—27 miles last Saturday—but I’ve been eating more.

My Downstairs Neighbor is a Homophobic Jerk

And he’s an architect in New York?

And that’s it for tonight.

Cold, cold cold, and getting colder; cloudly earlier.

Cold: the Other Kind

Just the usual winter cold. I left work early and stayed home Friday, but spent most of the day on the phone with conference calls. We called it a working-from-home day instead of a sick day.

Socks Complete

I finished the second pair of socks in Gem Opal. They are thick, but not too much so, and should be warm. They aren’t quite dress socks though. Weaving the end I was surprised how even the stitches came out after washing, Knitting on the subway occasionally results in odd loose stitch, but it evened out nicely.

I’ve swatched for dress socks in Schaffer Yarn’s Anne on #00 (1.75mm) and #000 (1.5mm) dpn’s. The smaller gauge looks good, but there is no way I can knit with those on the subway. I’m doubtful about the #00’s. I got 8¼ st/in and 9½ st/in respectively, seated in a stationary chair.

Feather & Fan Update

I have passed the 60% mark, and am approaching the end of round 151. Forty-nine to go.

And now for the odd body part.

When push came to shove, I just didn’t have the heart or time to finish another scarf for J’s sister and stay within the budget—$35 or less. I ripped out the red raspberry stripe and finished with the yarn I had.

There is a single row of raspberry separating the last brown and green stripes, but it is subtle. This is Reynolds Rapture (50% wool/50% silk) knit in long rows. If knit continuously, this would be two knit rows followed by two purl rows, but I cut the yarn before the purl rows, pushed the fabric to the other end and knit from the other side. Purling 220 continuous stitches is begging for arthritis.

I went to the gym yesterday morning; at 5:50am, to be exact. I’m doing it again tomorrow. I tell you this because 1) I want your pity, and 2) having announced it, I will be motivated to actually go.

Specifically, a hat in Noro Blossom.

When I started knitting the Noro Blossom, I thought, “This strongly resembles dust bunnies that a cat has been sick on.” Still, it’s not my favorite yarn, but it turned out nice enough. Completed in less than a day with slightly more than one skein of yarn.

The bulk of the remaining yarn will make a nice wine bottle gift bag. I doubt that I would ever use this yarn again. Why?

1. mohair
2. clumpy
3. obvious nylon bits
4. bad feel when running through my fingers

On the plus side, unlike other Noro skeins I’ve suffered through, this one had no knots. And everyone else seems to like the hat.

The relatively flat top was achieved with by decreasing nine stitches every other round until tying off the crown. I have to remember that.

[K₁: if you think A₁ will think it looks like cat barf, warn me off now. Otherwise, it’s in the (holiday) mail. Eventually.]

Backtracking

I had what I thought was a relatively fine Thanksgiving day. J went off to his folks in the Crazy State and I stayed home alone, being antisocial. The highlight was snaking the cheap low-flush American Standard toilet that the condo sponsor had installed when the place was built. I kid you not, the last time it clogged, it clogged on three sheets of unwadded toilet paper. Literally, it’s cr@p. If I could find the model number I’d warn you off it. The snaking seems to have worked: fifteen days without a stoppage.

I had store-bought Thanksgiving tortellini for dinner.

Friday I drove up to the Crazy State (not to be confused with the Nutmeg State or the Bay State), picked J up at his parent’s house and drove to Ptown to visit Mike and Tom, our friends at the Grandview Inn. It was the last hurrah. They’ve sold the place and are moving back to Chicago. It was a fun, but too short weekend. We’ll visit them in Chicago, and we’ll still go to Ptown, but summer vacation will never be the same. Or fall vacation, or New Year’s vacation.

On the Subject of Vacations

Guess who needs to work the week between Xmas and New Year’s? At least I should be left alone to get some work done. On the bright side, I don’t have to go to an airport. Or sit on an airplane. Or wait for checked luggage. Or…

We’ll see my Mom in January for her birthday. Travelling should be more sane, at least.

BTW, does anyone know what I did with the green chevron scarf I knit last fall? I think I gave it to someone as a holiday present.

J & I went up to Hudson NY for his birthday—he’s Brad Pitt’s age. We drove up on Thursday, stopping at a couple of wineries, one of which was open. We picked up half a case at Millbrook, three each of a Cabernet Franc and a 2005 Chardonnay, both good for the price. We got to Hudson a quarter after three and walked around after settling in at the guest house. We decided to have a margarita at Mexican Radio, which turned into two drinks with chips and salsa and then into dinner at the bar. We stretched it out and left a bit after six.

Hudson is very quiet on a Thursday evening in mid-fall. The street was almost empty. There were only two interesting shops open after we left the restaurant. I bought two coasters from a shop selling Turkish ceramics and glass, and we looked in on a shop that had, among other things, some cute knitted things—women’s and children’s only—some hand-knit locally, but didn’t buy anything. We went back to our rooms and found it was only seven. An early night of TV and knitting.

Friday we drove up to Mass MOCA in North Adams, MA. For J’s birthday we go to museums and restaurants; for mine we go to bars and restaurants, and I go yarn shopping and he goes to museums. The museum was a great space and I liked some of the art, but I still occasionally got that feeling of a joke I just don’t get.

On the way back, we stopped at The Fields Sculpture Park in Ghent. This is worth a stop, a long stop. Acres of fields and woods and a pond with large, outdoor contemporary sculpture and installations. We only had a little over and hour to spend before sunset, but we could have easily spent the whole afternoon. Most contemporary art doesn’t appeal to me, but the big sculptures do.

We had dinner at Ca’ Mea. It was good. We stretched it out with appetizers, entrees, dessert and coffee. J really liked the rigatoni in pumpkin cream sauce.

We still got back to the rooms by eight. We played a board game and watched Roseanne on HBO. How could anyone marry that voice?

Saturday morning, we had brunch at Red Dot, walked down to Parade Hill the look at the river, then did some shopping, but didn’t buy anything. We hit another winery on the way back, but it wasn’t worth the effort.

I did try to get some knitting in, but couldn’t come up with anything I liked. I knit five or six different patterns, frogging them all as doing nothing for the Fleece Artist kid mohair/silk I have. It’s a beautifull yarn. Frustrating. I came back to Brooklyn with nothing more than frogged yarn.

I have finished my hat made of Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino leftovers, mostly knit during conference calls.

That’s the outside; this is the inside. [The color is more blue than purple.]

Generally, it’s reversable, but the inside has a k4p1 rib to fit better inside the k8p1 rib on the outside. Cast on 90, btw.

Otherwise. Doesn’t Brad Pitt’s middle look a bit thick almost human on the cover of Vanity Fair?

As the purple hat for J was not particularly successful, I made another.

The wool is Debbie Bliss merino dk, knit on a #4 Addi Turbo circ and Inox dpn’s. The diagonals are twisted stitches as per Barbara Walker’s method. They carry up into the decreases to form a spiral in the crown.

The color is closer to actual here, but it does make the detail harder to see.

In other news, I went to work yesterday happier than I’ve been in a long while, not because of work or because I have today and tomorrow off, but because the Republicans lost on Tuesday. You know that it’s bad when the Democrats can’t screw up an election.

The bed was finally empty, so I stripped off the burgundy sheets, laid down a clean white sheet for contrast, got Birch, the pins and some heavy-duty, color-fast thread and got to work. This is the largest thing I’ve blocked—or made—so far. At first I just used the thread to mark the shape and size I wanted and used pins to bring the shawl out to the line. This gave be a scalloped edge which didn’t look right. Using a darning needle I threaded a thread through every other loop of one of the two short edges. I tied one end of the thread to a pin, stretched the thread taut and tied it off to another pin. Then I pinned the thread to the required shape. I repeated this with the other short side. The long cast-on edge was tight enough.

I can’t be sure, but I think that the pattern’s use of a k2tog-tbl instead of ssk meant the two edges have a slightly different tension, ssk being a better mirror of the k2tog. It could just be my knitting. One edge was definitely easier to thread.

This is Birch, released from its pins. We have no appropriate models in this household and no good place to drape it artistically, so you’re stuck with some pillows under a bedsheet.

I had put F&F aside to finish Birch and rest my still sore right arm—too much keyboard and mouse activity at work—but have picked it up again. At the end of round 121, I have knit 35% of the stitches.

J & I are off to PTown Thursday for a six-day weekend, so I’m off to work today, so I can leave in good conscience.