Chitchat and the occasional in-depth analysis about fiber, knitting, spinning, crochet, cooking, feminism, self-image, and a modicum of personal blathering.

Monday, November 17, 2008

It's the good old sentimental season

We got our first snow of the season over the weekend. Not much, just a dusting, but enough to make me worry about what's going to happen when we have accumulation and I have to walk through it with my crutch and my bad leg and my general unsteady state of existence. Scary stuff. Maybe we'll have a dry winter this year.

We got the major part of our holiday shopping done for this year yesterday. I have to say we spent more money than I was comfortable with, but what the heck. It'll be okay. I hope. I'm not going to get more specific than that because I'm sure my kids can find my blog if they want to and some stuff REALLY needs to be a surprise.

Crafting goes on. I'm making real progress. The DNA socks are moving along, despite the pattern being full of errors, which aggravates me to no end. I agonize over my free patterns being error-free, I think if someone is selling a not-cheap book, they could at least make sure the charts are right before it goes to print. But apparently, there is errata out there, even though I searched and searched on the web and didn't find any. It must have been added very recently.
This bothers me too much. I need to let it go. Here's recent photos of the socks.

PB173372

The cable should pop more once it's washed and blocked. It's more apparent in real life than it is in photos, if that makes any sense. I also need to go in and do the "gene pairs" that were clustered over two stitches, because those looked like ass when I was knitting them so I left them out, planning to go back and stitch them in once the socks are done.

PB173371

The gene pairings that cluster over three stitches are fine, but the two-stitch ones just didn't look right.

PB173374

One of the red beaded rib socks is done and the other is moving along.
PB173375

Both winecozies are finished. I went with i-cord for the tie on the second one, with tassels.

PB173370

PB173369

PB173368

I think they look pretty awesome. I still need to block them, hopefully that will take care of that slight unevenness in the two-color one.

Did my first sweater recycling this weekend, too. I had bought four sweaters at a thrift shop with the intention of taking them apart, one in cotton specifically because it wouldn't break my heart to mess up the cotton one. I got a big affirmation of Alden Amos' assertion that "twist costs money" because the 12 ply cotton yarn that made up the sweater was almost completely not twisted together. I ended up running it all back through my Babe spinning wheel to get some twist in it, then washed and hung it to dry. I have four skeins, two are quite hefty, two are smaller, probably about 6-700 yards of bulky weight white cotton yarn. It's soft, too, not like discloth cotton. No idea what I'm going to use it for, but it was a good trial run on deconstructing a sweater and I learned a lot. I have one pink wool, one black merino that is very fine gauge, and a grey silk, also very fine gauge, to take apart. No rush on them at all, though. I have plenty of time and that white cotton one made a MESS in the living room so I'd rather wait until I have time and space to work on the others. I might do the pink one pretty soon though, because it's small and a large yarn so it should be a snap.

Most of the holiday knitting is ongoing. I still need to start the socks for my mom. I'm going to do her a pair of Noro Entrelac socks, because they're fast, and awesome, and I think she'll appreciate getting something I designed as well as knit. I also need to start facecloths for my aunts and something (maybe a scarf?) for my mother in law. I really wanted to make her another pair of socks but I am not going to have time. Unless I make her some chunky weight bedsocks... hmmm... there's a thought. But I refuse to stress myself out over it.

The flowers Bob got me last week for our moveinaversary keep getting more awesome. I don't understand it, but I'm not complaining.

PB173379

PB173380

PB173378

Until next time...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

the DNA is really cool. the cheesy part of me wants to see that picked out in a little bit of color.
There are knitting errata? Cool.

And I cast on that legwarmer with 4 needles, scary. at least I got that far.