Restless Knitter

San Francisco was nice. We did some touristy things, like seeing the redwoods

visiting the Cakebread winery

and driving on steep winding roads that scared the crap out of me.

There were also a couple of yarn shop visits. First stop was Marin Fiber Arts, where I bought Drops Alpaca for a Wrapped In Comfort shawl. The other shop was Imagiknit. There I bought some Misti Alpaca Lace, possibly for something from Victorian Lace Today. I liked both shops. They were both friendly without being overbearing, which is why I felt the need to purchase something. Both had nice ranges of yarn to choose from, though Imagiknit had a larger space so a larger selection.

I started a sock before I left (something about trying to make sure that first round isn’t twisted on an airplane doesn’t appeal to me) and ran into a bump. I emailed the designer for clarification but I wasn’t able to check email until after I got home. I did get about 2 inches into the sock after we got home but I’m going to frog it. The socks (Dream Twister Socks) are pretty, I’d really like to make them, but they’re too fiddly. It would be a miracle if I finished the first one, let alone get up the motivation to do the second one.

Bella found a new friend yesterday. You can click for bigger if you want a better look.

That is what is known as a Western Rattlesnake. Also known as OMG BELLA GET IN THE HOUSE WHERE IS THE SHOVEL I HOPE IT DOESN’T GET ME BEFORE I GET IT! The Man was visiting family over an hour away so I was on my own. This little guy was right outside the back door, against the house. The wood in the bottom right corner is the decking that he slithered out from under. I’m assuming he slithered, I didn’t see him come out. Bella was giving little barks at him where he is. Our lawn chair has a nylon canvas back and seat so I turned it on it’s side to make a barrier between me and the snake. I got the shovel but with the lawn chair and the snake being right up against the house, I was having a hard time getting the shovel pointed just right. I slowly started lowering the shovel to make sure I was going to hit him and not just rock, and he finally had enough. He retreated under the deck, rattling his little tail off. Fantastic, he still has his head! By the way, I didn’t get as close to him as it seems. Thank goodness there’s a zoom feature on cameras.

I’ll end with a more pleasant picture, taken by The Man

I was browsing patterns on Ravelry and a couple of things came up.

1. Why do people post a pattern but not take a good picture of the item? Some of them have more cat in the picture than the knitted item. Hey, I love kitties just as much as the next person, I have two of them myself. However, I want to see what I’m going to end up with. There’s one picture that the item is folded/rolled/wadded up, I shit you not. WTF people. Free or for purchase, show me what I’m going to spend my time on.

2. What is it with lines across the boobs in tops? I’m talking about the ones that have a divider type line between the boob and belly sections. Why can’t the line be under the boobs? Why does it have to go across the boobs? Are we trying to make them look saggy? Look smaller? Is it a measuring tape? Is it bondage? Help the boobs, move the line! Someone explain to me because I really want to know. Perhaps if I know the “why”, I’ll see it in a new light and not hate the line.

3. Rant - If I see a picture of an item I want to knit, then I look at the pattern and see that it’s different than the picture, I want to reach out and touch someone. I’m just pulling things out of the blue and it in no way is part of the actual pattern so searching would be fruitless, but let’s say there was a section of flowers, then a section of bees, then a section of trees, and when you get to the pattern there is no chart for bees but skulls in it’s place. It was a fair isle pattern so I don’t know why I’m bitching since I don’t mess with fair isle, but it still irritated me. What if I decide to do fair isle tomorrow? I can’t make that item because the designer chose to not give all the same charts he/she used. I don’t want to have to go searching for the chart, I don’t want to have to think about it, I just want the charts used for the item in the pattern.

After 3 months of being MIA, I’m not sure where to start. It’s like there has been a lot going on, but not really anything. Let’s start with the knitting.

There hasn’t been much. I fiddled around with different stitch patterns for a scarf for D2, ripping out several after getting several inches in. I finally settled on one and have worked on it when the mood struck. It’s still not done, she can wear it next year. Surely I’ll have it done by then, right? I’ll get a pic of it when it’s done, or when the mood strikes, whichever comes first.

The latest issue of Creative Knitting had a maryjane baby bootie in it that was just so cute I had to make one.

I just used scrap stuff I had laying around, the white being some Red Heart Soft and the red being some Wool-Ease. No one is going to get it (I just wanted to make it for the hell of it) so I didn’t care what I used and I didn’t try to find a button to put on the strap. I’ll say this: if I’d had to make this on one straight needle I think I would have broken a wrist or some fingers. This definitely calls for dpns or a circ for magic loop type knitting.

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I don’t mean to disappear for long periods of time, it just happens once in awhile. Well, the project that wouldn’t be named is, I think, toast. It’s the Russian Coat from the Holiday 2007 issue of Vogue Knitting (see a picture here). It’s one size and, if knitted as written, would probably have swallowed me. I went down two needle sizes for the top part, and 1 size for the bottom part. I was really excited about this because it was going to be different than what everyone else had, and the yarn is a dream to work with. Here are the problems:

This is the back view. So far so good. However, the sleeves are too long. As a whole, the top part is still too big.

This is the front view. I know it looks like it has boobs but if you look at the link above, you’ll see that those are at the armpit, not the boobage area. To seam the bottom to the top, you’re supposed to stretch the bottom’s edge to 3 inches past the top’s edge. Mine isn’t going to make it. I’d say my error was checking stitches per inch for the bottom instead of rows per inch, since the rows are what lines up to the top. I think the bottom is the right size so if I want to fix this, I’ll need to reknit the whole top part. I haven’t decided yet if I will. (It looks kind of ugly in the pictures, but in person it’s much prettier.)

It’s been getting a little chilly during the dog’s evening walk so I whipped up an earwarmer/headband.

Thank you to the lovely dvd case for modeling it for me since I can’t. I decided to get a perm in my hair and it did NOT turn out well. I’m embarrassed to go out in public. Hell, I’m afraid if I step out of the house birds will think there’s a new nest to take over. Seriously people, I know we all have bad hair days but this is really bad. I’m doing a lot of deep conditioning to try to repair it and make it stop frizzing all over the damn place. Back to the headband, I used the band pattern for Coronet with a small change or two. I added 4 stitches, making it a k3 p3 on each side of the cable. I also slipped the edge stitch to give it a neater edge.

I made the daughter 3 scarves, one of which didn’t make it here. It was made from el cheapo yarn from Michaels. Daughter tells me it’s her favorite so wears it the most, and people have stopped her to tell her how pretty it is. Go figure.

Hope you all have a wonderful New Years! I know several of us have had a pretty crappy 2007 and are looking forward to 2008. May it be better for all of us.