Random Sunday!

Clearly I'm the worst blogger in the world. Oh well.

1. I missed the Silent Poetry Reading, apparently. Here, have some Emily Dickinson anyway.

Hope is a strange invention —
A Patent of the Heart —
In unremitting action
Yet never wearing out —

Of this electric Adjunct
Not anything is known
But its unique momentum
Embellish all we own —

2. My throat feels like I've swallowed a cactus.

3. I've dropped way more money on yarn than is appropriate lately. Stuff I've bought, oddly enough solely from Käsityötalo Priima in Helsinki (I need to rambe about yarn stores sometime):



Colinette Jitterbug in Monet. Oh my.



Sandnes Garn Mandarin Petit in possibly the greates blue ever. I cast on something with it, but I don't know whether it looks like arse or not. Also the picture was useless.



Twilleys of Stamford Freedom Spirit, 10 balls. Enough for a sweater, I think.



Colinette Point 5 in Sahara. Two skeins of PRETTY.

4. Speaking of PRETTY, this happened within two days of me getting my paws on that yarn:



Pattern: Painfully simple. Cast on some stitches, knit 2x2 rib until you run out of yarn. Bind off.
Yarn:Colinette Point 5 in Sahara, two skeins
Needles: telephone poles 12mm plastic straights

I love this scarf. It's really long (longer than my wingspan, at least, which admittedly isn't teribly long) and warm and pwetty. The yarn is really bulky, and I love thick-and-thin thing going on. The whole scarf took me maybe four hours, spread over two days.

The colourway is amazing. I also think it's funny how Colinette colourways look nothing at all alike on different base yarns. I usually love all of them. Here, for example, the colour is sort of subdued and vaguely brown, and on Jitterbug Sahara is a colour I believe experts call Really Fucking Orange.

5. I need more bookmarks.

6. I went through my button stash and did something that vaguely resembles organising. I took pictures and dumped it all back in.





7. I've fallen in love with steampunk. Again. (My second NaNoWriMo novel was steampunk. Seriously shitty stempunk, but still.)

I blame this necklace, which I found on sale for four euros last week:



The photo is horrible, but it's a black fake clockface with silver numbers and hands, with a silver gear hanging from it. I love it.

I'm not dead!, and an FO

Here I would like to insert my best impression of that one scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Now, knitting. I've been hindered by my wrist being a bitch, and by NaNoWriMo. This is my fourth year, and fourth win, in a row. Yay! As a reward for writing those 50 000 words, I bought myself the knew IK and Yarn Harlot's new book. Or, well, not that new, but still. My parents completely failed to grasp why anyone would pay money to read knitting humour. :D

Sad news first: You remember my Snakes on a Sock? Yeah, well, there is now a big honking hole in the heel on one of them. Sad face. I should see if I can darn it, but it's a really huge hole and I didn't have that much leftovers. And also I'm a bit too lazy to bother, probably.

I have been knitting, but not a lot. I've been working on the Pink Sweater or whatever I called it the last time I talked about it. The body is done, all it needs is a sleeve and a half.

Also, Christmas. Sorry, no, you can't deny it anymore. Me, I'm knitting all my family and friends sweaters for Christmas. I just started a few days ago. No, I'm not clinically insane, nor am I terribly delusional. I hope.

The sweaters are going to look like this:



Can you find? This brings back memories from my childhood; I had one of those books and I loved it to bits. Anyway, I didn't have the heart to cut all my stuff out of the picture. Plus you can sort of see the scale better this way.

The yarn is Garnstudio Silke Tweed, knit on some random aluminium DPNs I had lying around, maybe 2 or 2,5 mm. Pattern, if you can call it that, is my own. Basically it's just a simplified top-down seamless raglan. Might write the pattern up if I feel like it later.

Now, for the FO. This should have been one of those things that should take maybe an evening to complete. For me, maybe three weeks. (I have to admit that I only knit a row every now and again, and this is attempt number 3.)



The pattern: My own. I'm calling it Spark, mostly because of the ridiculously wonderful bright colourway.
The yarn: Apparently it's called Naturwolle Multicolor. One of my local yarn stores carries it, it's 100% wool handspun in Germany. The colourways are amazing. This one's called Magma. Used up the whole 100 g hank.
The needles: 6 mm wood straights



(I know the first photo doesn't really show the hat. I just got excited when I saw a photo of me that didn't make me look like an unwashed idiot.)

Spark is a simple cabled hat, knit flat from the top down. The second photo is supposed to show the increases, but the colourway sort of obstructs everything. I love it anyway. Certainly cheers me up when the sun is below the horizon when I leave for school at 8 am or come back at 3 pm. :D



A better view of the stitch pattern. It's a fairly basic six-stitch six-row cable, with some slipped stitches tossed in for good measure, finished off with a 1x1 twisted rib.

I might write this pattern up, too, but I don't know if it'd make any sense to anyone who isn't me.

FO: Sockpal Socks

Pattern: stitch pattern from Handpaint Highlight socks in One-Skein Wonders, otherwise fudged together by me
Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug in Toscana, one skein
Needles: 2,5mm bamboo DPNs (actually four bamboo DPNs and one aluminium, because I'm a klutz)

That pictue is truly awful, but it's the best I have of the completed socks.

I had to fudge around with these quite a bit. I'd knit with Jitterbug once before, and didn't have any problems with yardage. However, I'd heard a lot of people say there wasn't quite enough for a proper pair, and my Sockpal had size 10 feet. To solve my problem, I did a provisional cast-on, knit the heel and down to the toe, and picked up for the leg. Turns out that I needn't worry, really. The foot on these babies is a bit over ten inches long, and when folded in half at the heel the leg pretty much matches. The scraps on the table are all the yarn I had left.

Now, the smart among you might notice that this is a pattern with slipped stitches. Slipped stitches for elongated vees, especially when they're slipped over two rounds. Anyone seeing the problem here? Why yes, the vees run in opposite directions on the foot and on the leg. I'm calling it a design element.

Now, the yarn. I'm terribly fond of Jitterbug, mostly because it's the only "fancier" sock yarn I have access to. When I bought the Toscana, I thought it was a nice, earthy green-brown with a few splashes of colour. Yeah, well, no. I still rather like it, and hope the recipient does too. (And doesn't mind the minuscule amount of purple the yarn has. I swear I didn't notice!)

I've actually knit this sock three times. I ended up ripping the first foot I had completed, because my gauge was way too tight and the sock had a strange pointy toe. I also had to knit enough bits of the leg over and over again to make up a whole one. I'm still not sure if I got it entirely right. I hope the socks aren't too narrow and too long like I'm afraid they are.

Also, as I was a twit I didn't remember to look up a good bind-off. I did a super-loose suspended bind-off with larger needles, and it seems to have worked.

(Random detail: the knits on the ribbing are twisted. I like the way it looks, and when stretched, it sometimes looks sort of like p2-k1-p1-k1 ribbing instead of the k2-p2 it actually is.)

FO: Topi hat

It's summer! (I believe I can say that now without causing a snow storm or something.)



(Are my photos too dark? I have one of those fancy flat monitors, and it seems to lie about how light things look.)

My wrist is not getting much better, but I can knit a bit every once in a while without destroying it. I'm going to have to be careful, though, because I have six exams during this week and the next and most of them include writing essays. Thank you, Finnish educational system!

Remember when I vented about my faulty copy of No Sheep? Well, the store did take it back and ordered a new copy from the publisher. I got a proper copy a week or so back, and I loke it to little bits. I read it straight through the first chance I got.

***

I finished Topi way over a month ago, but I kept forgetting to take pictures. I finally had the chance today, so here it is. :D



(Please excuse my dopey expression. That's the best I can do after writing two essays at school.)

Pattern: Topi, from Knitty
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed in Phantom (153), less than one ball
Needles: Circulars of a mysterious size. If I had to guess, I'd say 3mm/US2½. Aluminium.



Interestingly enough, I took this photo myself, but I still look like I completely failed to notice the camera.

I knit the hat because I kept getting blinded by the sun while waiting for the bus. It worked up really quickly, and I rather love it. I had a bit of trouble with the cast-on, though, and couldn't figure out the instructions in the pattern, so I did a quick google and found this tutorial, which worked for me.



I really love the way the slipped-stitch rib looks.



I'm also ridiculously fond of the way the top of the hat spirals. The purl ridge is sort of cute, too. (Also, photographing the top of your own head is rather tricky.)



This is what I wore with it when it was a bit colder. It's been too windy lately, and I also got sunglasses with the proper sort of lenses for my eyes. I'm a bit sad the sun washed out the print on my bag; I'm really fond of the bag. (I bought it from the shop at the Science Museum in London. It's got a drawing of an old-school VW Transporter, with bits cut off so you can see some of the guts. It's like this one, but without the text.)

FO: Motherfucking Snakes on a Motherfucking Sock

Excuse my French.



The pattern: Snakes on a Sock, by Miss Lime of Lime & Violet. (I do wish they had links to the pattern(s) in their sidebar.)
The yarn: Colinette Jitterbug in Jay
The needles: 2,5mm for the leg and foot, 2mm for the heel, bamboo. (And one aluminium 2,5mm, becaue I lost one of the bamboo set.)



I love colour. I love the fit. I've worn them for several days, even inside my shoes, which is a first for me.

The second sock is a bit larger than the first one, even though they're worked over the same number of stitches and rounds. Apparently my gauge gets looser toward the end of projects.

Also, the pattern is lovely. It's easy enough to knit even when you can't look at your hands, and the repeats repeat in a wonderful, logical, orderly manner, which pleases my geeky brain. During one of my weaker moments I hit an error in the pdf and left a comment. I swear the reply I got from Lexy the admin monkey broke all kinds of laws of physics, because I got it the second I clicked the submit button. Later, Miss Lime also emailed me, too. (It wasn't anything I couldn't have figured out myself. I was a bit sleep deprived.)



A better look at the stitch pattern. (Also I really rather like this photo.) Please excuse all the crap on our deck.

FO: Jaywalker socks

They're done! Actually, they were done over a month ago, but whatever. :D

The pattern: Jaywalkers, from MagKnits (Like you didn't recognise that. Did you know that if you Google 'jaywalker' the pattern is the first thing on the list?)
The yarn: Regia 4-fädig Crazy Color or something along those lines, about 75 grams
The needles: 2,5mm bamboo DPNs, though I lost one halfway through and had to replace it with an aluminium needle

Now, the fit isn't that great, but it's entirely my own damn fault. I should have used 2mm for the socks, and something even smaller for the heel flap, because apparently my purls are ridiculously loose.

I love the socks and have worn them a lot. The soles are becoming sort of fuzzy, but the yarn doesn't show any other signs of wear.

The pattern is a delight to knit. It's got that mindless stockinette in the round quality, but also the zig-zag action going on to keep me from getting bored enough to stab out an eye with a double-point. I could knit on them on busses (I get car-sick if I don't stare out the windows) and in class, because I didn't have to pay that much attention. Simply wonderful, and worked wonders for the striping yarn, too.

Because the socks are a bit large, I usually wear them either with a pair of store-bought socks underneath them (along with a second layer of trousers, because I get really damn cold) or as-is to bed.



As you can see, the legs don't quite match. The stripes don't, either, but I wasn't trying to match them. At all. And since the first sock didn't use a whole ball, I started the second one with the leftovers from the first, so even that level of matching-ness is a minor miracle.

Now, there's something fishy going on with the toes. That's because I'm an idiot and a kitchener stitch dweeb. Here, have a helpful diagram of where I screwed up:



The red lines highlight the direction of the kitchener stitch. Why yes, I did kitchener the toe of the first sock, on the right, in a right angle to the way it's supposed to be. Go me! (I hope I at least learned something from this experience, as I couldn't be arsed to rip back, because it doesn't really bother me.)