Some more knitting

Unfortunately, I did not think to take pictures before sunset, so I won't have any pictures in this post. However, if there is anything I mention you'd specifically like to see a picture of, I'll totally take one tomorrow if I have time.

Speaking of responses to comments, I'm thinking about migrating my blog over to a platform like Wordpress where instead of a "web identity" an e-mail address is required--I really like it when people respond to my comments on their blogs, but with this setup, I can't just reply to the comment e-mails and start having a conversation, and I feel a little awkward commenting on someone else's blog just to have a little conversation about finishing socks, or whatever. I generally do click through to commenters' blogs, I don't always have anything to say about their more recent posts, especially if (say) they've posted twice in the past two weeks and their posts are about church and school. I'm such a lurker . . .

Speaking of finishing socks, though, that purple pair I posted about a while ago is 100% finished, ends woven in, gone through the wash. I think they shrank up a bit in the wash, but unfortunately they still bunch up pretty severely in my silver pumps. :( I'm definitely bringing them along next time I go shoe shopping, so I can get something really nice to show them off with. (The only shoes they fit under now are brown ballet flats of an overly similar value, and sneakers, which defeats the purpose and in this climate could possibly lead to overheating. Also it'll munch up the heels. I don't really like the short-row heels; it might be due to the fact that they don't really fit so well, but the corner migrates all over the place. I think I may do a flap heel next time around. Also, the toe is really hard to modify--it was obvious maybe an inch from the toe that the circumference would be a problem, but I had already had had to restart the toes twice. So I think next time I do toe-ups I will not use this pattern.

A break from knitting:



My new favorite singer, Time Minchin--I actually got linked to one of his songs from an atheist blog I frequent last night. And, well, he is my new favorite. I really like this song, a lot--it reminds me of this guy. We talked on Skype last night, and we both really like this song. We have an on-again-off-again romantic entanglement, and, well, if we lived in the same state we'd be dating but as it is we just have long-distance drama. But we totally talk about what if we hadn't met and what if we'd met under different circumstances and in some ways we work but in others we don't and we're eighteen and we live thousands of miles apart, we don't talk about what could make a future. for all sorts of reasons. I was going to send him a warshrag (in coordinating colors to one I've been using) for his birthday in September, but then we had some weirdness and I never sent it. But now we are waxing more positive, and I have a great desire to send him the thing. (He wants to be a farmer when he grows up. I want to convince him to grow sheep on it. I could make value-added products of the wool.)

As far as the Obama shirt--it's not going to fit well, which I thought was due to the gauge, but I suspect I may have made a mistake in the shaping somewhere. So I'm just going to have to make the front identical to the back. I'm well into the armscyes for the back--I had to buy more yarn, and it took me a bit to get to the store. I suppose I could have started the front last night--I did have the yarn for that--but instead I did some weaving-in of ends and worked a few inches on Versatility--I'm going to have to go to the other LYS to get the extra yarn I had them set aside for me in case I'll need it. Which I will. Because they don't accept returns of wound yarn . . .

I'm really worried about these set-in sleeves, though. Wishing I'd gone with a raglan pattern. But it's intarsia, I've got to do it in pieces, and a raglan in pieces could still have serious shoulder alignment problems. Goddammit. I should have paid better attention. Used row counters. Taken notes. Printed out the pattern. But no, I was in too much of a hurry . . .

Also I'm not sure I'll be able to block it before election day--I ended up just sticking a wool wash in a recent Knit Picks order (needle tips to replace ones I sat on, yarn for two pairs of socks and a sweater, and an EZ book because books are on sale in the month of October.

. . . A lot of my friends here don't hesitate to drop a couple hundred bucks on tickets for concerts. I haven't been to a non-free show yet, and I rarely eat off-meal plan, so my job supports my knitting. Good stuff, good stuff . . .

YOU GUYS IT'S A FINISHED SOCK!!!

Taken with flash.



Blurry but artsy & the colors are so so close.



Do you honestly think I care about blurry? I MADE A SOCK.



This is most what it actually looks like . . .

You guys! I totally knit a sock.

I'm going to eat breakfast and then I'm going to work on homework for at least an hour and then I'll cast on sock #2! Oh my goodness I cannot wait to wear these. (Because I totally do need to wear wool in New Orleans. Shut up.)

The Sock Saga

So remember how I messed up my math on a sock calculator pattern & therefore frogged it? But I was going to re-check the gauge first? Yeah, I forgot to check the gauge when I frogged, and re-cast-on, and in the meantime the gauge has loosened. Goddammit. I want to finish these plain ordinary socks so I can make Yes We Can socks. I mean, I want to know things like my actual foot circumference before I attack some knee socks that are full of things I only know about in theory, like stranded colorwork and duplicate stitch. And I really really want to have those socks to wear by election day. Because they're kind of amazing like that.

Anyhow, I'm trying to decide whether or not to soldier on with these purple socks, but in the meantime I really ought to do my schoolwork.

As always, more later!

I'm back from my vaycaaaaaaaaaayshun!

So I have a confession to make. I just got back from a week-and-a-half-long beach vacation, which involved copious amounts of knitting. I didn't really have access to blogging facilities while I was there (in Michigan, by the way), by which I mean internet. But my Big Blogging Sin? I didn't bring my camera. I didn't forget it; I deliberately didn't bring it. See, last year, I broke my camera by dropping it in the sand. The brokenness of the camera is clearly demonstrated by this picture of a cute guy I hooked up with:



So this year, when I was packing, I thought, "I won't bring my camera, I'll just break it." As I was knitting in the car, I realized my terrible mistake--how in the world would I document my travels? Revelation! I would borrow my dad's camera! However, none of the pictures I took are of my knitting. I got no pictures of me knitting on the beach. No pictures of me knitting in this super awesome knitting shop. No pictures of my friend Alexis (well, my friend Justin's girlfriend Alexis) crocheting at the beach. That girl, by the way, is highly impressive; she taught herself to crochet while on vacation, then showed no compunction about bringing fuzzy yarn to the beach (I get sand in everything; I brought 100% hemp & dishcloth cotton). She even brought it to a bonfire! Also she was crocheting while we were playing Monopoly, but that was at her (her boyfriend's family's, but whatever) cottage, so it wasn't like she had brought it with her.

The main point is this: I have no pictures of me knitting in a bikini while ideally positioned to deepen my tan. No pictures of white sand and turquoise waves and clicking needles. No pictures of knitting that coincidentally happen to include shirtless attractive men between the ages of 16 and 21 in the background. (Although I did take a few pictures of said men on my dad's camera . .. I'll post them when he gets home, as penance. Also as eye candy.)

But! I got home yesterday, to some three-week-old pictures on my camera:



My knitting bag all ready to head out to SnB.



Note especially the Australia wallet being used as a DPN holder.



And this, my friends, is an unfinished sock. It is a Sock with a Saga . . . but the saga must wait, for I have manymany pictures to blog!

For you see, my camera was not the only thing I came home to. I also came home to some lovely orders I'd been expecting.



My Harmony options, for one thing.



Also this lovely roving from nerdclub2000, colorway Ravenclaw with silver and bronze (customized). It's maybe not quite as "bronze-y" as I'd expected, based on pictures of other rovings she's done, and the longer I look at it, the less it reminds me of Harry Potter and the more I look at it the more it reminds me of my high school's colors.



But I wasn't sure I wanted something super Ravenclaw-y in any case, I just like the idea of blue & silver & bronze. Anyhow, we'll see how this spins up . . . I think I may have to dig right in!

I do have more pictures to blog, but I have been on the computer far too long & my mom is now home from work. So you will see some FO pics & a few WIP pics of things I knitted on vacation someday soon--but not quite yet.

If you comment, I will love you forever, and probably post again sooner . . .

Life stages . . .

So today was my very last day of high school. And I have to say, I'm gonna miss it a lot. No, really. I am. (I do have to go in to the building tomorrow, to return my astrophysics textbook and pick up my honor cords which I didn't even know existed due to being out of town for the honors convocation . . .)

And so this is like a new chapter in my life--not just soon-to-be-high-school-graduate, but a first-time sock knitter!



(The color's not great . . . this girl's flikr photo is much better.)

Some backstory: On Monday, I biked out to an LYS near my old elementary school. It had been ages since I'd been in that part of town . . . it's a K-2 school, and I don't think I've been there since my brother graduated there, 8 years ago. I wanted to get some circular needles for The Dumb Baby Sweater, and I like browsing and the walking-distance LYS is too small to not be awkward. And I bought some dpns and sock yarn, which took FOREVER to pick out, because I needed something that (1) was not ugly, (2) did not feel gross, and (3) did not cost 12 million dollars for a pair's worth. But I did find some I liked a lot. (Cascade Heritage, for the curious, in a lovely plum.)

And there is more to say about this little cuff, but I would like to get to SNB tonight and my mother has decreed that it is Necessary to Clean Up A Bit.

More later,
LNOR