Christmas Knitting - Let's Go!

If you are still reeling from the horror that was last night's blog post, don't' worry. So am I. I spent the day alternating between essay writing and Buffy watching / knitting. At the end of it all, I have about 8 inches of a sweater, with only what, a million left?

I get a little insane around Christmas time. It is, by far, my favorite season/holiday of the year. There is nothing as magical to me as Christmas lights, trees laden with ornaments, and the thrill of watching people open their gifts.

This will be the first year of my life, that is 21 years of dutiful Christmas spirit, in which I have not made the small pilgrimage downtown to see the Marshall Fields Windows. (Now Macy's but I choose to forget that small fact...) This will be the first year I don't wake up to a general hubbub of stockings, Christmas breakfast, and a beautiful tree. I will be in Japan, so I am not complaining. I just get all teary thinking of those bright lights, so far away.

This is my first official Christmas Knitting Installment. Shall we see what Christmas 2007 is looking like?This is one of my all time favorite patterns, the DNA Double Helix Scarf. It's the second time I've knit the pattern, and it was just as much fun as before! It's ingenious really. People stare at it for a few seconds before something clicks and you hear a small gasp of recognition. This scarf, in short, rocks.

(Please forgive the craptastic photos. The sun sets at somewhere around 3:45, and the light in my room is truly terrible. But think! In just 4 months I'll be back in Michigan where I'll have both best friend and boyfriend at my picture taking disposal. It might help. Maybe.)


This rockin' scarf is for my uncle because my uncle is a rockin' man. It's not just a Christmas Present! It's also a big thank you, since my rockin' uncle co-signed my not so rockin' loan.

What better way to say "Thank you for placing your financial security in the hands of your 21 year old niece" than to give him a scarf? My thoughts exactly. Oh, paying the loan back is the other way I'm saying it. On time even!

My rockin' uncle used to be a large animal veterinarian.* Then he got his teeth kicked out by a horse. Pesky horses. He always told me it worked out though, since it gave him an advantage on the rugby field. (do you play rugby on a field? I am very uninformed.) You see, my rockin' uncle is not a small man. He's not a big man either. He's huge. Probably around 6'6", all of it muscle. On the rugby court he is a man to be feared. So, when the teeth were kicked out, he used it to his advantage. "I just pop out my fake teeth and go at the other team. They're always a little freaked out by this massive, toothless man coming at them." Or so he says.





*Now he is a veterinary consultant and animal nutritionist. It's all kind of science related, right? I just wanted to knit him a cool scarf.

It was a dark and dreary night, ages ago...

Okay well, no it was about a week ago. But it was probably dark and dreary. And this is a horror story, so lets get in the mood. Conjure up Poe, light a few candles, and brace yourselves. This ain't for the faint of heart.

So, a few weeks ago I was merrily knitting away on a sweater for my father. It is a tradition: every year I give him a sweater and this year will not be different. I was dutiful, I ordered the yarn in August, cast on in September, and last week had the great pleasure of casting off the last stitches of the body.

There you see the sweater happily bathing, pre-blocking. People, this was a lot of yarn. A lot of knitting, and a lot of yarn. And, oh, about 3 months of my life.

And here we see lots and lots of teeny-tiny floats, a beauty in their own right.

*Sigh*. This sweater could have been so beautiful.



And then...Deep breath...unraveling.

I know! I know what must be running through the minds of every knitter right now, hands clutched to breasts in fear, or perhaps their own WIP. Thinking "Don't do it! Stop, you crazy bitch! What are you doing?"

The damn thing is too big.

And we're not talking a few inches of ease. No,I'm not that much of a perfectionist, and my father still abides by the rules that if I knit it, he must love it. But there are limits, and I could not give my father a sweater that could easily have fit two of him inside. His chest is about 42" around, and this sweater was pushing a 54" bust measurement post-blocking.

It's like the monster of knitting. I have created a monster!

I deliberated for days, (hence the lack of blogging). What to do? Give my father a sweater that he could also use as a tent in case of emergencies? Steek it and sew it? (Wouldn't have enough yarn for the sleeves...) Find a new pattern and commit myself to knitting another fair isle sweater in a few weeks? Rip out the sweater? Or even worse, buy my father a present?

In the end, I decided the sweater would be sent to the frog pond. Then there was some drinking and complaining. And then I went to Liberty's and bought 7 balls of Rowan Wool.

Stay tuned...Christmas is in less than a month, I'm on a trans-continental flight in 21 days, and I have two papers due next week. But Goddammit, my daddy is getting a sweater.


All I can say now is, I was so right in calling it the Sweater O' Doom.

Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving all you Americans! I know at least a few of you read my blog :) If you happen to be British, I ask you a simple question. WHY DON'T YOU HAVE PUMPKIN PIE OR CANNED PUMPKIN IN THIS COUNTRY?

No pictures or knitting for now...I've been swamped with an essay on James Joyce's Ulysses. I turned it in this morning and headed right for the kitchen...

....where I cooked my first Thanksgiving Dinner ever! I had a lot of help, and it was a wonderful affair.

I should mention, Thanksgiving is quite a celebration in my family. My mother was born and raised in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Enough said. So, it seems that deep in my veins runs the undying lust for perfect turkey and massive amounts of mashed potatoes. And pie. Lots of pie.

(I didn't do my own turkey -we bought pre-sliced breast and just marinated it and roasted it. Hey, it was my first thanksgiving!)


So eat well, drink well, and be thankful dear friends. Today is a day to be thankful for, and I am happily, and tipsily being thankful for all the good things in my life!

I do not have cankles

Contrary to what these pictures may lead you to believe, I do not have cankles. Really. All ankles here.



But, we have a foot! Yes, my Q sock is the proud owner of both turned heel and beginning of a foot. You can see my mods - the slip stitch pattern on the bottom of the foot, and the continuation of the tumbling blocks on the top. I'm thrilled with it!

I pretty much can't wait to wear these, and I couldn't wait to declare my love to the whole world.

Q, I love you.

And now for something a bit different...

May I present you with a rose?












Because as they say, a rose is a rose is a rose

and that which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet...

But when does it not? When is a rose not a rose? And I assure you, no sweet smelling roses here. Nope, just the earthy, damp smell of maple leaves.


You see, it all started with an innocuous project I spied over on Craftster. The goal was to make a bowl using only newspaper and glue.

I succeeded. See? A bowl.












Glamour shot of aforementioned bowl.











Aerial view.












And then I had a bowl. It sat on my desk for a few weeks, looking sad and lonely. I moved it around occasionally, but it remained empty. This bowl needed a purpose. Obviously I could not eat from it. I could not use it in the kitchen in any way. I could store things in it, but had nothing that needed storing. I couldn't put my basil plant in it, or I wouldn't be able to water the plant ever and it would die.

What is a girl with a bowl to do?

Pshaw. Go outside, and when she thinks no one is looking run around like a maniac picking up maple leaves. Rinse, repeat. (I got a few stares... no harm though. This isn't my real school. In six months I'll be gone and we'll all just be fond memories.)

And then, make flowers. There are 10 in the bowl, and maybe more on the way. There are a LOT of maple leaves here.

Now, the bowl has a purpose. The bowl has flowers. Lovely, antique looking flowers. Sort of vintage, literary roses that live a double life. Perfect for the desk of an English major with an affinity for Gothic literature. They are Gothic flowers. Gothic heroines in their own right.

But what really matters, is that they are flowers.

Q me, baby

First off, this is what four episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer,and three episodes of Desperate Houswives will get you (besides a headache.)


14 inches of what well may be the Coolest Sock Ever To Grace This Planet. Or, Q from Knitty.com.

I am so in love. I finished up the leg on the first one, and am ready to start the heel, but this baby needed to be blocked badly. "Within an inch of it's life" would be an apt description. So to the floor she has gone, while her mate graces my very small needles.

I also want to try to modify the pattern a bit. I don't like the solid foot and ankle; it ruins the visual flow of the pattern, so I'm going to try to avoid them. I'm thinking solid heel and toe, with the pattern continuing on the foot. I wish I had thought of this before I ordered the yarn, so to make sure I have enough of the CC (peach), I'm going to knit both legs first.

Fun fun fun!

Right...that school thing

It's been a week since we last chatted, and to be honest, I haven't gotten a whole lot done. After the whirlwind knitting weeks I described last week, I guess I just ran out of steam.

Part of it may have been that I was in Amsterdam for 3 days. I didn't want to risk getting knitting needles confiscated, so I didn't bring the. (No checked baggage for me, when I can avoid it.) I'm glad I did decide to leave my knitting at home, because two of our party were thoroughly searched. I was only patted down. Sigh. Clearly my life as a knitting delinquent could be so much more exciting. Don't worry, I'll put up some pictures of Amsterdam soon. Since we were there for such a short time, I don't really have much to say, except that I love the Dutch. And their bikes!

But now I'm back. It's reading week, and I thought I'd have a nice break from my (not so strenuous) classes. A whole week to knit, sit in the park, go to museums. A week in which I could shut off my brain and just enjoy myself.

Hah.
That right there is several THOUSAND pages of reading I need to do in the next week and a half. From bottom up, Swann's Way by Marcel Proust (for my Moderns class), Ulysses for the same class. (Joyce...not easy reading...), Jane Eyre for my idiotic Women's Lit class (don't get me started, the teacher not my favorite, and I feel my life is worthless after we discussed Frankenstein.), The Periodic Table by Primo Levi, and last but not least Middlemarch by George Eliot. Oh god. Typing that out made me hyperventilate a little bit.

If anyone would like to prevent a college student from going off the deep end, send cookies. And yarn. Mostly cookies though.

Because, yarn is not my friend lately. I managed to get up to the neck on the Sweater O' Doom
and I take back everything I said in the last post about how easy it was. You see, I have now put the front 48 stitches on a holder, and must work the next two inches flat. Which means purling the fair isle pattern. Okay, not a problem.


What is a problem is that the charts are all wonky. My brain hurts just thinking about it but I will try to explain. Take chart one. You don't need to know what it looks like. It's a chart. Checkers of black and white and all that. A cryptic language only we can understand. My row does not end at the end of chart one. It ends in the middle of a repeat, which is fine. It looks fine, it acts fine, it's fine. No hissy fits have been had by either myself or the chart.

Until now...
You see, now I must purl chart one, working backwards. Working the chart the other way. From left to right instead of right to left. Are you seeing a problem? I don't know where to begin. And I'm too peeved to figure it out right now, so Doomy Sweater O' Doom, bringing grey clouds of doominess into my life, is sitting on the floor. We are currently not speaking.

I will, of course, sit down and figure it out. It is reasons like this I keep a bottle of whiskey on my desk.

(I'm half joking about the whiskey.)

Laundry list of WIP's

I feel like all I do these days is knit. This isn't completely true. I read, sometimes. (I just started Middlemarch for class, and I'm quite excited.) Sometimes I go to yoga. Today I went to the Greenwich market and then walked around in the park, my favorite spot in London.

But mostly I knit. I only have three projects currently on the needles, but it seems like a lot. (They're all relatively large projects, and I'm so excited about all three, I can never decide which to work on.)

A tour of my day might look a little something like this.

Morning: Work on the "Lizzie" sweater. The body is done. I now just need sleeves. Inspiration for sleeves, to be honest. I've got the whole sweater except for the sleeves done.

The lace pattern is called "Leaves of Grass." I actually found it on the lion brand website,which was quite a nice surprise! I like the way it works with the denim. It has a nice drape,and is lacy yet no-nonsense. Just like Elizabeth Bennet.

Midday: Cue the Sweater o' Doom. I had a small panic attack when I realized it was already November 2nd. I have to get this thing done, steeked, sewn, blocked, wrapped and mailed by mid-December to get it to my dad in time! Good thing it's grown.
I'm about 20" into the body, and need about another 6" total before I can start the sleeves. It's actually been less full of doom than I thought, and once I got the hang of the pattern it started clipping along. (You can see the front and sides in this picture. Nifty!)

Decidedly less doomy than I thought. Although I might take that back once I have to steek it.






Night: My "secret project". I know this is the first I've mentioned it. I've had an idea percolating for a while, and figured all this extra knitting time would give me a chance to actually execute the idea. Witness part 1 of the secret project.

The secret project also includes a lot more yarn. If you've ever wondered what $100 of Wool of the Andes looks like, here's your answer.

A lot.