spud says hi

New toys

My new office computer finally came yesterday.  It's a shiny new iMac, with an utterly glorious 20 inch screen.  So many things can be open on the screen at the same time it's amazing.  And fantastic.  And, yay.

And also, it has a built in camera, for video chatting and stuff like that.  I have no idea how much I'll use it, probably not all that much.

But.  I've solved the problem of taking pictures of myself, maybe.

Somehow it's the right height.  And you see what it's doing before it takes the picture.

Of course, there's also the possibility of taking freaking weird pictures with wacky fun-house mirror effects.

Perhaps when I'm really procrastinating.

That's better

OK, I think I'm done with my slump.

The green tank, done, and being gently blocked!

I kept putting off finishing this was in part because I had this whole plan involving charting out the decreases because that way everything would be exact, and maybe adding some sort of knitted on edging to the armholes, and...

Yeah, none of that happened.  Instead I made myself just start decreasing for the armholes, and did my best to keep track of what I'd done.  And it more or less worked.

Now, yesterday when I pulled it on before washing it, it fit just about right.  A tiny bit shorter than I'd have expected, but otherwise nearly perfect.

I think the blocking will definitely give it extra length; that's the way this fabric pulls... down.  So I'm blocking very very gently.  No pins, as you can see.  Instead, I decided to just push it into place, to flatten the lace pattern a bit, and generally just to guide it towards its ideal shape rather than make it go further than it might want to go.

If I'd finished a day or two earlier I'd actually get a chance to wear it this summer, because it's really quite warm out today.  And MY HEAT IS ON.  Ugh.  I've attempted to shut off all the radiators (I have really a fairly tiny apartment, in which there are FOUR radiators, three of them gigantic), but they're still throwing off heat.  It's unpleasant, and bad for sleeping.

Now, I shouldn't complain, really.  It's obviously better to have heat in Canada than not.  But, still.  This is too much.

Sigh.

That hasn't stopped me from starting something new that'll be quite warm and cozy, though.

A couple of Estes Park Wool Markets ago I bought this lovely wine red boucle (the sun makes it look brighter than it is; it's really a gorgeous deep red), and have finally started something with it.

It's going to be a fairly simple long tunic with probably some sort of scrunchy neck.  I'm making it fairly close fitting, I think.  There are a few rows of garter at the bottom, and then stockinette.  I'm not yet sure whether I like the stockinette or reverse stockinette side better, but I won't have to deal with that until I get to the tops of the shoulders, really.

It's also going to be very holey and airy.  I'm using size 15s, and there are only 68 stitches a row. (It's circular, because there's no freaking way I'm seaming boucle.  Been there, tried, that, frogged an entire sweater twice in frustration.)  So, in other words, it's going to be a fast knit.  This is about as much as I knit in two episodes of Farscape (thanks B, season 3 got here) during several points of which I had to stop knitting and gape at the screen a bit.  This could be done within the week, honestly.

I also finished something else up last weekend, but it's still hidden until it actually arrives at my mom's house.  Late, sadly, because today's her birthday.

Happy birthday, mom!

Torn

Ack!  Choices, choices, choices.

I'm leaving for Australia on Saturday, and I'm bringing two knitting projects along: the roundabout leaf tank, on which I've done nothing since figuring out how I want to do the edging, and yarn for a pair of socks.  They're both particularly portable, especially as the trip starts up, so they're kind of ideal.

In the meantime I'm getting so close to being done with these two projects, and it's hard to choose what to work on!  I've ended by default working more on the shawl, because it's finally so close to being done that I'm just motoring through, trying to finish.  I've got 40 rows of the main body left, and have been managing 10-12 rows a night, when I've got time.  So I should have virtually the whole body done by the time I leave on the trip, and be able to finish the whole thing before the move to Toronto.

But there's a part of me that wanted to finish off the green tank, because I could then wear it on the trip.  not that it'd be entirely appropriate for winter in Australia.  Instead, I've hit the point where I'm going to split into the front and back, and because this now requires thought, I've stalled.  I do want to finish it sooner than later, though, because, well, summer.

Argh!  And then to top it off, I'm really loving Julia Child's memoir, and want to spend time reading it, not knitting (something made all the more necessary because I've got to return it to the library before I leave). 

Another bit of wisdom from Julia, one that I've got to remember:  "I don't believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make....  Usually one's cooking is better than one thinks it is.  And if the food is truly vile, as my ersatz eggs Florentine surely were, then the cook must simply grit her teeth and bear it with a smile--and learn from her mistakes."

Again with the choices!

Tanks.

Spud wanted in on the action while I was trying to photograph my current progress on the Milanese lace tank.  There are several pictures with his paws entering the frame, and a couple of blurry ones because he did that kind of diving rubbing up against my arm while I was taking the picture.

But, you know, whatever.  Right now he's slung across my lap, purring loudly and occasionally meowing, as if to say, hey, get your hands of the keyboard.  Pet me.  And sit more comfortably for me, too, while you're at it.

I'm really liking this Milanese lace pattern.  It's very intuitive once you get used to it, and the 10 row repeat is pretty simple.  There's a bit of an oddity in doing it in the round;  in order to get the line of decreases to make an uninterrupted spiral, halfway through the pattern you have to move the patterning over a stitch.  In other words, every 10 stitches the markers I've placed at the sides move over a stitch.

The result's quite nice, though.  This is a closeup of the lace pattern as it's developing now.  You can see the difference between this and the original swatch.  In the original, half of the swoopy bits swooped into the line of decreases; in this, the line is basically uninterrupted (if a bit jogged at points).

Because of the lace, I'm not doing any shaping of the body... that was just too much to think about, and, well, I'm not having it.  But with the sort of ribbed effect the lace pattern makes, it should fit fairly well.  I'm now starting to think about what kind of top I want it to have (not that I'm exactly close for that, but it's coming sooner rather than later).  I initially planned to just do a straight line at the top, and knit straps up from the straight line.  That would certainly be the easiest thing to do.  But part of me is wanting to shape it more like a classic tank top, though that'd be a challenge with the lace... I'd almost certainly have to switch to stockinette for the top, though I might do that anyway.

Decisions, decisions.

I'm finally getting ease.

By which I mean something specific.  Ease refers to, well, to the difference between the circumference of your body and of a given garment.  So, for example, if you're knitting a sweater that you want to be good for layering over a shirt (or two), you don't want to make it exactly the same size as your, um, widest point.  You want to add a bit to it to give it room.

But for, say, a summer tank top that you want to fit a bit more closely, you might end up actually using "negative ease," which means you make the garment smaller than your widest point, relying on the fact that knits stretch.  Otherwise you end up with something baggy and unflattering.

Why do I finally get this?  Because yesterday I had a good 10 inches or so of my green Milanese stitch top finished. 

And today I have two and a half rows finished.

I'd actually cast on just about perfectly; the gauge was spot on, the circumference exactly what I'd planned.  But what I'd planned turned out to be way too big, as I discovered when I kind of slipped on the tube that the top then was.  It wouldn't have been awful, but nor was it really what I wanted.  I frogged it (made much easier by the possession of a swift, since I was knitting off two separate balls, both of which I perched atop the swift as I turned it, unraveling the yarn), rewound the yarn, and cast on again, taking in to account negative ease.

Ah, the learning experiences of knitting.  Yay!  No, seriously.

Something new

I've swatched for a new project, a tank or camisole-ish top in this stitch, Milanese lace.  It's from Barbara Walker's second stitch dictionary, converted (I think perhaps not quite properly) into the round.  The little diagonal lines should (again, I think) connect... so since casting on I've moved a bit of the pattern over a stitch. 

I'm using one strand of the multicolored very fine cotton I bought in New York, and one strand of a cotton rayon blend from Laura, my local yarn dyer, on a number 7 bamboo circular needle.

The swatch was actually tricky, and a bit scary.  I wanted to be sure to wash and block the fabric before calculating the gauge, because I know cotton can be weird.  And I also know that my gauge is very different in the round vs. back and forth.  So I cast on 24 stitches and knit them in the round.  Then I washed the swatch.  Then I CUT THE SWATCH DOWN THE BACK so the circular piece would flatten out.  Scary!

So now I've cast on for the sweater itself and knit half the pattern rows.  Fun fun!  The current plan is to do this lace up to just below the bust, then switch to stockinette (at which point I can do some shaping, too).

In other knitting news, I just got to see my friend desiknitter, who was in town, and who made such a lovely clapotis from Laura's yarn.  It was in a very fine merino (not quite lace weight, but thinner than fingering, I think), doubled, and turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous fabric.

And the secret project is going well, this time.  And I've also made more progress on the Orenburg shawl.  I'm close to being done with another chart, at which point I'll post more about it.