Myriad Update - May 2012

Well, part of my challenge this month was to knit one sock yarn square for my blanket for each day in the month. They are not big squares and I finished a bit early and thought I'd share pictures!

That's only the section of the blanket that I worked on this month. That's about half the width. I have another picture, which is not as pretty, but I drew in a line marking where the squares I made this month begin.

I particularly like the really big red one. I count that as four squares as it's the size of four and the same number of stitches. At first, I told myself I didn't want to make a big square because it's clunky and takes more than a few minutes to knit, but the gradient yarn is so pretty it does no justice to make little squares that don't show the color changes.

Anyway, one of these days I will take pictures of the giant, huge blanket in its entirety. It's funny because now it's at a width where most people mistake it for a scarf of some kind!

Weekend Meetups

Well, I have had quite the busy weekend regarding fiber!

Saturday

Saturday was a really great day. I met up with the San Antonio Handweavers Guild. They have a meetup every third Saturday of the month starting at noon at Yarnivore. There were quite a few people there, I was very surprised! It was nice to meet new people and learn from them a little. My little spinning wheel was quite a hit and a lot of people thought it was cute and had questions.  I also got quite a bit done, as well! I spun up some of the dyed merino I bought from WishFox Dyeworks. It's probably the only merino I have done well with thus far and I think the spinning is coming up great! I will probably navajo ply it to keep the color changes nice and consistent, since the roving is a bit wild. I would hate to lose the gorgeous colors in the business of plying it. I'd rather try to keep it consistent. Anyway, I bought 5 oz so I'm hoping it will turn out lovely with quite a bit of yardage.

Another great thing is that this particular fiber seller is part of the Phat Fiber group. Apparently, this month each purchase made from the etsy shops of any of the sellers listed gives you a chance in a drawing for a fiber box. Wooo! If you are interested in the details, please check out the thread on the ravelry group. These fiber artists do amazing work so being the nasty enabler that I am gives me warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

Oh! Pssst... speaking of enabling! Yarnivore is now carrying Tosh sock and DK weight, and waiting on the worsted. I would hate to be alone in this dangerous place, you know. :)

Sunday

Today was a local LSG meetup at 2 Rivers Coffee in New Braunfels, TX. It took me forever to get there, and not just because I underestimated the time... but because I got lost. Yes. I, even with the superpowers of a GPS and iPhone, got lost. Horribly. I will say, though, that New Braunfels is hardly the worst place to get lost. The scenery is quite wonderful and it's nice to drive around there, lost or not. Also, I will mention that it is not a horribly big place, so getting lost there is kind of... special. I did eventually figure it out and we met up and had quite a bit of fun! I gave away some fiber to the daughter of one of our local hoars and also traded her some sock yarn for her blankie, which I totally convinced her to do in the first place! She had some great sock yarn for me to add.

Please ignore that purple ball toward the bottom, there. I had meant to add it to her bag and had a brain fart and dropped it into mine on accident, even though I have an entire ball of it. I'll keep it and give it to her when I see her next. When I came home, I totally ignored my sock (the almighty last few inches of it!) and worked on four squares. The blanket is looking less and less scarf-like by the day, it seems.

I took a picture cutting off the area I haven't worked on all month, so that blue square in the top left is where I started off this month. I'm submitting my blankie squares to BSGFPB this month, so I'll probably doctor a picture up at the end to outline the squares from May. I love that big red one. You can't see it too well, but it's actually a lovely gradient yarn starting at a deep fuschia color and going to a red-orange at the top. I like it.

I'm really hating the yellow light in the house. I'm going to have to definitely take pictures outside, probably on the picnic table in the yard. Everything looks so muted and jaundiced it's not even funny.

Various Things

Well, I've had a few interesting things going on the past few days.

Adventures in Knitting Land

First and foremost was our very first knitting meetup at Panera in Huebner Oaks. I think it went very well and am looking forward to making this into a regular event for the San Antonio Fiber Junkies. At this event, the wonderful lady who introduced me to the sock yarn blanket gave me some yarn for said blanket. I have not yet worked all of it in, but I have knit squares from some of it. Please excuse the horrible quality of the photo and feel free to chastise me for my terrible laziness about weaving my ends in. I now have a system, I think. Every time I knit one square, work in those ends and the ends of another square. It's time consuming, but worth it because... ack! It's a huge mess with tangly yarn bits hanging out everywhere. Also, yes, that is a hallway and I do seem to have something attempting to escape from my linen closet. What's a girl to do when she's making a blanket large enough for a king sized bed with no bed to model it on? The hallway will just have to do for now, then I will start putting it in other hideously large floor spaces in my house... that do not currently exist. Expect rants about spontaneous furniture rearrangement in... a few years when I've knit enough squares to need to worry about it.

Anyway, at last count I had 61 squares. That is, of course, provided I actually counted correctly and do not stay up all night knitting. I'm kidding! (maybe not)

I have also been knitting those socks I started. Do not worry, I'm not cheating on them too hard with the blanket. They are looking great so far. I am not exactly sure on whether they will fit in the calf/ankle area. I can only feel confident in the fact that my gauge seems to be spot on and trust in the wisdom of the whiz who wrote the pattern. Anyway, here is a picture of the awesomeness. It's sort of amazing because the color of this yarn does not ever, ever come out correctly in pictures. It doesn't matter what color I have in the background. Anyway, I took this picture with my work resting on my knee while wearing the pink scrub pants of awesomeness (kidding, I really don't like pink!) . All in all, I think it's going well and am looking forward to getting further along and showing off.

Heathen Happenings

Anyway, I do have other things going on! For example, today I received my very first issue of Idunna. I joined The Troth at some point in the not-too-distant past. I'm not entirely sure which month it was since they all seem to have run together recently, but I was quite surprised to receive it today as I have been too busy to really think about it.

 
So, there it is nice and neat on my desk... with yarn in the background. :/ Anyway, I am looking forward to reading it and thinking about everything I'm reading. Probably after finals week, though. I have been so busy I haven't even had the opportunity to download the Odroerir journal, much less read it. I will definitely be reading that one as soon as the semester insanity has ended, as well. It would seem I am going to have quite a busy May.

Serious Things!

Work and school seem to be going in a great way. I am very happy with the new client I have at work and am really getting a lot of points on Nexercise from cleaning around her place. There is good in that, right? I am also happy to be getting paid because I spent some time with absolutely nothing from work and was miserable with lack of income and things to do. So, now that those things have been fixed I am feeling a lot better about life in general.

School is going... all right. I have to admit that I have been very unmotivated for the past few weeks. I am not sure why, but I feel that it is passing and I will be doing better for the rest of the semester. I am really quite terrified of tomorrow because we are having our post test... meaning a 1.5 mile run/walk. I am confident in my ability to do better than I did last time, but honestly I am pretty discouraged about the information I got from doing my measurements. It's sort of strange because nothing really changed... except my legs. I will have you know that my thunder thigh situation has gotten better by a few inches, mmkay?

Anyway, I have a lot to do tomorrow with all of that and a few things I need to take care of for my chemistry lab so I'm not going to be blathering on about it all night. All I have to say is that I am going to forgive myself for the horrible behavior that caused this semester to have disastrous parts to it and do better. There are only a few more class periods in the semester and I will shine for them, dammit. Next semester will be better.

A Heartfelt Note...

On a more serious note, I would like to share something with you all, my rather amorphous and invisible blog readers who may or may not actually exist. Last year, after my car accident, I received four blood transfusions. I had some serious damage to my lungs and lost a lot of blood with all of the fractures I sustained. If it was not for someone donating blood, I would not be here today to ramble on about knitting and all of the things I guess I'll have to read later. So, if you are eligible, I am going to go ahead and encourage you to donate blood. I'm feeling rather inspired  because I am officially now able to donate as of the first of this month and we are having a blood drive on campus next week. I will be there. If you are in the San Antonio area, there are a lot of different resources available, the most prevalent of which would be the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center. So, without further adieu, I say get thee to a certified vampire for the good of mankind!

Finished BFFs

Well, I have finally finished the BFF socks I have been working on! They are beautiful.

I only had a slight problem on the second sock. It seems that, on the foot, I was not holding the needles tightly enough when transitioning from the top to the bottom so there is a little bit of laddering on the purl right before you transition to going to the bottom of the foot. I fixed this about halfway down by pulling the yarn very tight on the second stitch on the next needle and it seems to have worked itself out nicely enough. I only wish I had noticed it much sooner and started to do it before! Ah, well. I love them dearly, anyway. I work them outside to take a picture in the sunshine. I doubt I will be doing that again because merino is very soft and does not hold up very well. I worked hard on these socks and want them to last.

It's funny, last night as I was getting to the toe I was terrified that I was going to run out of yarn. The Tosh Sock does not have quite as much yardage as some of the other sock yarns I have seen out there, but I was left with a nice little hunk. I will be parceling it out to share with all of my friends who are knitting the sock yarn blanket. It is a gorgeous color and I have seen many an eye linger on it, ha!

I do not have very interesting project notes, but if anyone is interested in seeing how I did all of this with links to the pattern pages and whatnot, the link to mine is here. I think maybe next time I knit them (and I probably will, somewhere down the line) I will knit one sock with the normal cables and do the other with a cable to the back instead so they will be mirrored twins.

As soon as this project was finished, I of course went ahead and dove into another. I started another pair of socks. I am currently gauge swatching, but I plan to knit up Down The Rabbit Hole in Knit Picks Stroll Multi in the Peacock Multi colorway of old. It is apparently no longer available. Here is a picture of the starting supplies (sorry it's kind of blurry). I'm glad to be using this, because I feel it's important to use up some of my stash before going to Yellow Rose. Hopefully these socks will be finished by then and I will have a clear enough slate to look at everything available and get plenty of fresh ideas.

Well, that's about all for now. I hope everyone has as enjoyable an Easter as I am! I thought I was supposed to be working today, but when I arrived I found that I wasn't supposed to be there at all. Apparently there was a communication mix up with the boss. Hooray for waking up early and then not having to be at work, thus resulting in a longer day. I have no idea what we have planned for Easter dinner, but I'm glad it's not going to be too high-maintenance.

Socks Part 2

Well, last night at knit night I started a new pair of socks. I am knitting them out of an awesome yarn I got from Yarnorama in Paige, TX. I bought it on Yarn Crawl. It's a handdyed sock yarn called FiberObsessions. It's an excellent yarn and I am enjoying working with it so far. The pattern is Hermione's Everyday Socks by Erica Lueder.  She is the designer of the month for Sock Knitters Anonymous,  and I have worked with her patterns before and quite enjoyed them so I thought I'd go ahead and knit another. This pattern is also available as a pdf download on ravelry.

As far as changes done to the pattern, I have a gauge of 8 stitches/inch instead of 9. Since the Monkey socks fit me so well and have the same gauge, I just went ahead and cast on 80 stitches instead of 64 as the pattern suggested. They should turn out very well.

I really love the color of the yarn, but haven't been able to capture it in a picture yet. We will see if I can get it later. It's a very slate or dusk color with a lot of gray and some hints of blue here and there. I think it's gorgous. These will probably take me a lot longer since I have a few other things to wrap up and weave in the ends, so these will be on a backburner periodically. They will be done by the end of February for Sock Knitters Anonymous, though. If you want to follow my progress, here is my ravelry projects page.

Work insanity with larger socks...

So, the new patient thing did not go exactly according to plan. Specifically because dementia patients can be rather fickle. She threw a paranoid fit about me being there at all and I was dismissed at 2 after the weirdest series of phone calls with the patient's two daughters. So, needless to say, I again am looking forward to a ludicrous amount of time on my hands and even less time to find alternative employment with which to fill it because class starts on Tuesday. Bah.

The good news is I've got the craziness with my new-to-me iPhone sorted. Witness it, folks. This is history. I am now officially in the modern age. Little Luddite me is typing out an entire blog entry on a smart phone. Do you detect that glorious scent on the zephyr of change? It's the stench of fear and progress. I'm sure the gift shop in Hell is now advertising a great sale on ice skates because it's entirely frozen.

At any rate, things will be ok. I just need to avoid flipping out. Work will have something for me soon. They always do. They told me on Monday that I would have nothing all week and see how that turned out? Things can change quickly in this business and freaking out is not going to help. So, I will leave you with a fabulous picture of my socks so far. Enjoy.

Insanity (with socks!)

So, things have been going pretty insane for me in the past week. I have had a lot going on. Everything pretty much happened on Monday in a two-hour time period, too. I went to drop off time sheets at work and talked to my boss. She told me that the patient I had been working for passed away on Friday and no one was notified, so we could not have anyone attend the funeral. It makes me really, really sad. I am going to have to get a condolences card for my patient's wife. She must be in a very hard place, right now. Poor thing.

The other bad news was that, since he passed away, I was not going to be getting any work this week. That was a real bummer and horrible news since it happened the week before I start school. Oh, joy. I was flipping out thinking I was going to have to spend this week job hunting and hoping for something good to come of it. Anyway, today my boss called and told me that they just got a new patient with a 24 hour care order and I was getting first call on shifts. I went ahead and took Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. It's a hefty schedule, but I am more than happy for the hours and something to do.

Also, the check engine light came on in my car.  It's an older car and I knew I needed to get an oil change and such, so I hoped beyond hope that that was the problem. I took it in to Jiffy Lube yesterday and they changed the oil and the light went off. Yay! Also, they changed out the air filter so I should be getting somewhat better gas mileage, now. That's good.

Also, my iPhone is slowly getting to become mine. We are currently getting my mom's stuff off of it and resetting the settings on it. I'm pretty happy with it so far. All I have to do, now, is change my phone plan and swap the SIM card. I'm so happy. A phone that will not die after fifteen seconds of being used for something. Finally.

Also, I have started some socks for me. I started working on them because I was in dire need of therapy knitting with everything going on and I like them so far. It's a pattern called Monkey by Cookie A. It used to be a free pattern, but she published it in a book and, well, it's not free anymore. I like it and the other patterns in the book enough to have purchased the book, so there is that. The book is called Knit. Sock. Love. by Cookie A. If you enjoy knitting socks, I would suggest this book. I have it in .pdf format on my Nook. Very handy access, there. Also, I have another of her books called Sock Innovation and that one is very good, as well. I must admit, though, that I have never knit any of the socks in the book. When I purchased it, I was still very much a sock knitting newbie so I was sort of terrified of them. Not anymore. I plan to knit at least two other pairs of her socks this year. Probably for me. Because I want to be selfish so there.

I do not have current pictures of the sock, but I started it at 1 am on January 10th and have already turned the heel on the first one. I guess that's fast knitting? Anyway, I have the ravelry project page if anyone's interested. I will add pictures soon because I absolutely adore the yarn and the pattern. I promise. I just need to get a good handle on my phone/camera situation. I do have a sort of crazy initial picture to post, though.

Kiddo Armwarmers

So, I told my little brother that I would be making him some armwarmers for Christmas/Yule. I decided to make him some Gradient Mitts. The pattern is very simple, has a size that would fit for him, and would go by very quickly with a bulky weight yarn. Well, I decided to go ahead and get some Cascade 220 Superwash and hold it triple stranded for this particular project. I think that was where the problems really started. I HATED those mitts. It has nothing to do with the pattern and everything to do with the crazy yarn mess and the fact that, when he tried them on, they did not fit very well. To be fair, he has freakishly large arms for an 8-year-old. After measuring, we have figured out that he and my sister (19) have around the same size.


So... what to do? First of all, I didn't want to go through and undo the one I had made previously and the yarn tangle was still making me pretty angry. So, I decided to go ahead and make up a pattern and get new yarn. I went to The Yarn Barn, which is the only place in San Antonio to get Cascade 220. I have never been particularly fond of this store because I always thought the customer service was sort of... odd. However, the lady who helped us there was very nice this time and allowed my friend, Liz, to use the swift and winder there. I don't know what her name was, but she was knitting the most fabulous beret out of a (probably mohair judging by the halo) laceweight. Aside from the weird customer service, though, I have had the issue with leaving this store with a ball of yarn that looked like a completely different color inside than it did outside. I don't know if it's the lighting or what, but the first time I thought I was picking up ecru and opened the bag at home to find white and THIS time, I got black and blue and found black and purple when I went to start on these armwarmers. Knitting for an 8-year-old boy is not exactly a purple sort of thing. I would suggest to people going to make sure you know what color yarn you're looking at (like hold it up to the window or something) before you buy. That would solve the problem I have had there and, should I need to go there again, I will be doing so. Anyway, the kiddoo has taken it like a champ, so I'm going to get my act together and knit another pair out of the yarn currently tangled and in the other armwarmer.

Anyway, let me go ahead and give the dimensions of what I knit for him and a picture to go along with. Please feel free to use if it appeals to you. If you are interested, my ravelry page for this project is also available, though I think the same information is here, as well. It's just a few mashed numbers to result in a tube. Seriously, not very difficult at all.

Dax's arms are about 8.5" around at the widest point, right below the elbow. From that point measured down to the base of the thumb joint is 10". 

My gauge was 5 stitches per inch on size 7 US needles.

I cast on 40 stitches in color A, split onto four dpns. Knit 7 rows in color A. Switch to color B and knit 7 rows. If you are annoyed by the little jog in the stripes and want to avoid that, TECHknitting has a really awesome tutorial. 

For the thumb hole:
Row 1 of 3rd stripe: Switch back to color A, knit 17 stitches, bind off 6, knit 17.
Row 2 of 3rd stripe: Knit 17 stitches, cast on* 6, knit 17.
*I used the knit cast on. A video tutorial can be found here.


After you are done with the thumb hole, continue knitting in stripes of 7 stitches until there are 12 total (or longer, if you need it to be...?). Bind off and weave in your ends and there you go! Arm warmers!

He seems pretty happy with them:

The Pink is Upon Us!

So, today was my cousin's baby shower. She's having a girl. The shower was a lot of fun with some interesting games. One of which included melted chocolate and baby diapers, which was oh so much fun! So, now that the gift has been given I can now post pictures of the awesome and utterly humongous baby blanket I made for her. Yay! (I'm sorry the picture is blurry, the camera on my phone is a bit iffy these days.)

I actually started this blanket back in late February and it was in the car during the accident. It was salvaged, washed, and I continued working on it to make it into the huge monster it became. I love it and hopefully my cousin and her new baby will, as well. 

After the baby shower, we went to the Blanco Lavender Festival. It was on the way home, and very interesting. We shopped and got some nice sundresses and I got some awesome yarn! It's 100% merino in a sockweight. I'm considering either socks or a shawl. It doesn't much matter, I love the colors. :)

The lady selling it also sells soap, her shop is called Soapmarked. I didn't buy any due to lack of funds, but she has this chocolate scented soap that is absolutely to die for. I'd consider eating it, seriously. Anyway, we got to chatting and I found out she lives in San Antonio. Hooray for having another local yarn hoar, right? Anyway, she seemed neat. She doesn't sell her yarn on her website, but either way her items are worth interest.

We also stopped and got some tasty Fredricksburg peaches. They are absolutely delicious and my grandmother plans to make a peach cobbler tonight with some of our bounty. I am sure it will be beyond yummy. :)

Oh, also! I began the Yggdrasil Afghan. It looks really awesome so far, but I only have a picture of the beginning supplies. I already have had to frog and restart due to being not quite right in the head when I began and screwed up the cast on, somehow. Okay, so the way it works is you have to do an invisible provisional cast on, but I didn't think that was working out too well for me. The pattern says to do it "into a slipknot". Well, I decided to take it at its word and made a slipknot and used that as my waste yarn and then pulled on the tail to tighten it. Basically, a magic loop. It worked fabulously and I am pleased with the way it's turning out, now.

Oh, also I finished the socks. I absolutely love the way they turned out and my sister does, too. They fit her and she wants them. They would fit our little brother better, but it doesn't really matter. She likes them, that's all that matters. They are definitely fraternal twins. The second was knitted while I was on the road to Arkansas with my grandmother. I guess I was having highway anxiety, because it knit up a bit smaller. The colors spiral rather than flash. I like that they're fraternal twins, and the size difference is marginal, but I wish they weren't different. Ah, well. 

Also, I will have you know... I got a new job. I'm excited about it, but everything is happening so quickly lately that I don't really have time to be running around screaming woo hoo about it. I start on Monday, it's doing data entry. Mom is excited about going shopping tomorrow to get me some more office-type clothing. I'm sure I will do well and it may end up being a wonderful fit. I just miss my old job. 

Intermission

I had intended to type up a quick post about the Scarborough Renaissance Festival trip, but I haven't had time. We've been getting ready to go to Arkansas to see my family to celebrate my great grandmother's 90th birthday. So, I'm going to just insert a quick blurb about what's been going on in the interim between trips and I will post about both of them when I get back. Huzzah!

Well, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday with my surgeon. Despite the hideous wait even though I was on time for my appointment, it went well. I am doing well, well ahead of the curve. My right radius looks perfectly healed and my left femur is looking about 90% finished. I'm feeling really great, and he seemed very pleased with my progress. I did tell him to look into doing a clinical study on the benefits of kicking as applied to bone healing. I'm fairly certain it helped me.

Yesterday, unfortunately, did not have such an awesome feeling for very long. Our good ol' family dog, Missy, passed away. She was a sweet girl. I remember when we got her Labor Day weekend when I was eleven years old. She was my first dog and I doubt there's another dog in the world as special as she was... in both affection and stinky farts. There's not a whole lot I can really say about her. She was getting quite old, well over fourteen years, and we didn't expect her to do well this summer due to the heat. She lived a full life and will be missed. Rest in peace, girl.

Along with everything else, I finished up A Game of Thrones today and have begun A Clash of Kings. I also finished a sock. It doesn't fit Sarah very well, I think I'm going to make Dax wear them.

It's a brand new day

I can honestly say that today has been really awesome. I have been feeling pretty productive, lately, and I think that has helped my self-esteem quite a bit. It's difficult to give up my busy lifestyle to stop and recover, but I think I'm getting much better. It's probably because I'm much more mobile, walking with a cane and feeling awesome about it. I have several projects I'm planning and I have some great things to look forward to.

Today, I worked on the pair of socks I'm making for my sister, Sadie. I'm following the Hidden Stairways pattern. I am really liking it, so far. It's actually a really quick knit and very easy to remember the leg pattern. I am currently at the heel flap on sock 1, and I have found that there's a little bit of a problem with the pattern as it's written. As it's written in the pattern, the heel flap does not work up into your run-of-the-mill eye of partridge heel. I think you're supposed to knit one of your heel flap rows, then begin in order to end to where you're sitting with WS facing and it shows the typical eye of partridge pattern with a garter stitch edge. As it is, my sock is showing the reverse because I knit it up as the pattern indicated and add in another k3, p to end row so that I have WS facing to pick up my gusset stitches on the side. I like the way it looks, so I'm not too terribly worried about it. I'm going to go ahead and turn the heel and fix up the gusset and take a brief pause before starting the foot.

During my little day off from knitting, I'm hoping to catch up and read a bit of the book A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. I have several friends reading this series and I have heard that they are very good books so I am planning to enjoy them quite a bit. I have been watching the HBO series that is based on the books and enjoy it, and I have heard that the show follows the book very well, so I'm sure it's amazing.

Well, other than that, I have been doing quite a bit, today! I spent a lot of the day knitting while watching Stargate: Atlantis. I love that show. A few good friends of mine introduced me to it and I'm really enjoying it. It has more of a sense of wonder and exploration that SG-1 seemed to, which is another show I really liked. 

I also went to physical therapy. Today was really inspired by Thor, I can feel a lot of my strength coming back and I hope to be walking without the use of a cane very soon. My physical therapist seems to be very pleased with my progress, today we decided to increase my exercises by adding a 15 minute bout with a treadmill. It wasn't just me walking on it, though. There's a harness connected to a machine that pulls you up and takes some weight off. I have decided that losing fifty pounds is absolutely necessary and would be beyond awesome. Anyway, I'm hoping to continue the upward trend during my sessions next week. I'm going at precisely the rate I want to.