DesigKnit

A few people responded to my previous post in which I lamented my inability to respond to comments. They suggested that I use Haloscan to manage blog comments, since it will give me email addresses so that I can respond. Thanks for the suggestion!

I tried installing Haloscan just now, and it appears to have lost all but my test comment. There weren’t very many to lose in the first place, but I’m not sure why it won’t let me see them anymore. Hopefully it will work with any new comments that come in. We’ll see how this goes…

Well, that went well. It probably went better than it would have late last night, but I think I probably could have handled grafting even with slightly blurry eyes. Good to know for 3 am knitting marathons. I avoid those anyway, but it’s always good to know that something is as easy as it looks. Isn’t it pretty?

And, a close-up of the stitches:

What’s that? It’s not close enough for you? Click on the picture…now there’s a close up! Gotta love digital cameras; can you see the individual plies?

Now, I have a sneaking suspicion that Fleegle’s method is really Kitchener stitch in disguise. Whether it is or whether it isn’t, there is most definitely a half stitch offset. I’ve decided I kind of like it, and I’m not sure that I see a way that it could be avoided, so I think I’m not going to worry about half a stitch.

I really like the join; the way the two patterns come together reminds me of the ostrich plume lace stitch, which is one I’ve been meaning to try for a while. And the seam is practically invisible; I have to look pretty carefully to find it, and I even know it’s there. I love dual-purpose knitting; I have created a gift, and learned something new and useful. Yay!

Humph. I have been knitting like crazy tonight to finish the second half of the vines scarf. Well, I made it. And then it occurred to me that I need to join the two halves together. Actually, it’s been occurring to me off and on for the past 2 nights, but I’ve been able to put it off. Until now. The lace is ready to become a scarf, and here I am wondering how on earth I am going to join it. My favorite grafting method is one that I made up, which involves knitting one stitch from each half together in my normal cast off. I am sure that this has a name, but I don’t know what it is. It’s not something I was taught; I just sort of intuitively figured it out when confronted with two things that needed to become one. But somehow it doesn’t seem appropriate for this case. It seems like there should be a better way out there.

Now, if this had been a scarf with a pattern that could be worked from the middle, I’d have had no problem. I’d have used Judy Becker’s magic cast on that I’ve been using from Cat Bordhi’s sock book, and knit from the center out in both directions. But the vines pattern has a very nice scalloped cast on edge that would have been a shame to lose (and probably would have made for a very awkward join anyway). So, I knit both halves. When I finished the first, I just cut the yarn and kept it on my circulars while I knit the second. This made it very easy to compare length and determine that yes, it is now time to finish the piece. But how?

I’ve heard a lot about Kitchener stitch, and while I’ve never tried it, I think it sounds pretty straightforward. But it offsets the pattern by half a stitch. In the grand scheme of things, half a stitch is probably insignificant and will never be noticed. But it’s half a stitch. I want it to match exactly. I don’t really feel like trying the waste yarn method, either, where you knit a few rows, join, and then pull out the waste yarn. If it were after Christmas, I would have either been given or have bought some basic knit technique books, and they would probably solve my problem. But, as it is not yet after Christmas, I have only 4 stitch dictionaries (can you tell where my main interest lies?), the Knitter’s Book of Yarn, and Knitting in the Old Way, which only discusses Kitchener.

If it were after Christmas, I would also have put myself through the knitting grammary lessons that I have planned (more on those later), and I would already know how to graft. But alas, it is not after Christmas, and as this scarf will be gone by then, I need to figure something out in the meantime.

And now that I have succeeded in my goal of finishing the second half of the scarf tonight, I think I am going to wander off and leave the grafting for tomorrow. It’s after 10, and my eyes are getting fuzzy, which strikes me as probably a bad time to start working on something completely new and probably harder than it seems with dark yarn and half an hour until bedtime. I hate to leave it unfinished, but I think the world will be a better place if I avoid unnecessarily frustrating myself with what should be a simple task. And so, to bed and reading about knitting rather than doing it. Yay for procrastination!

Exams are depressing. And not just for the students, I might add. There are just no two ways around it. Exam grading leaves me exhausted and wondering why on earth I bothered to try to teach. I don’t know about you, but 520 pages of test problems (where a 15 out of 45 is apparently a good score for a page) is just not a heartening way for me to end a teaching assignment.

Sometimes, I understand. Sometimes the professor is really mean, or tricky, or the exam is too long, or something. But it’s hard to say that the test was too hard when the prof told them that he would pull 6 questions from the exam out of a list of maybe 25 book problems, and they had a two-sided 8.5×11 notecard, and we had two review sessions and several practice exams. I know the material can be tough, but the sorts of mistakes that were made are really just sickening. I am one of those TAs that really puts everything aside when I have a student that wants help and is trying. And I even put things aside to try to inspire the apathetic ones to try harder. I have put myself so far behind in my research trying to give these students a leg up, and they didn’t even read the stupid book.

And then they fail. Miserably. Sometimes I wonder how it’s possible to get so few points on an entire page, even if you’re guessing. I mean, random chance says that you should get more points than zero. It seems like you would have to try to fail this badly; it just defies statistics. You can only grade so many zero point pages before it starts to get to you. I had at least 10 today, and probably more like 20. There were several in the single digits (and we’re talking 50 point pages here). Branden often does better on these exams than my students, and he’s never sat in on an organic chemistry class in his life (yes, he does take them just to see what intelligent guessing can do for you…). You’d think that not having taken the class would put him at a disadvantage, but then I suppose it doesn’t really, since they don’t go to lecture, and they have never opened an o-chem book, either. Ok, that’s a bit harsh; I know some of them have, and many have been trying very hard. Tomorrow, I will remember that many of them have succeeded. Tonight, I am just tired. Tired of grading, tired of teaching when no one learns. Just tired. And my eye has started twitching again, which makes me crazy. Sigh.

On the plus side, I have gotten some knitting done. I’m about 3/4 of the way through Mom’s scarf, and I’m hoping to finish it up tomorrow. I had hoped to find some time to work on a project for Branden, since he’s not home to snoop and it’s impossible to work on things in secret unless he’s across the country on business. But, I think that’s not going to happen. I am just not a fast enough knitter, I’m afraid. Ah well. He’ll forgive me if it ends up not being a surprise. Or maybe I’ll just work on it while he’s at robotics all next quarter. We’ll see. For now, I think I am going to take my tired and depressed self off to bed, and hope that things will look better in the morning (so that I can go back to school and add up the scores and calculate the final grades…so that tomorrow can be almost as depressing as today…). Blarg. Hopefully I will have something less dismal to say tomorrow night. See you then!

The vine lace scarf is going quite well. It pays to listen to your yarn! I had to increase all the way up to a size 7 needle to offset the bounciness of this yarn, but that means that the knitting is going very quickly. It’s hard to see the pattern unblocked, so I pinned it out quickly for photos:

I love the depth of this yarn; it’s spring gives it a very nice texture. I lost a little bit of the velvetiness when I increased to the size 7’s, but it was definitely worth it in terms of pattern visibility. Here’s a close-up:

And, a more relaxed view, taken with no pins.

I’m still having serious lighting issues, so these were taken with the flash, and still aren’t perfect. Light box for Christmas?

This is it. My students’ final exam was today, and I’ve been assigned to a different class next quarter, so this batch of students is moving on forever. In a way, I’m relieved. At UW, undergraduates come in with no expectations of their TA except perhaps that of being bored. Over the course of a quarter, they build those expectations and learn to actually expect to get something out of quiz section. Now, this is a wonderful thing, and it’s something that I wouldn’t change for the world. However, when they start out with high expectations, we go through the same building process and at the end they feel like I’m not doing enough for them. Really, I’m doing more, but their idea of my job description changes to include any and all concessions that have been made in the past. Therefore, teaching the same students two quarters in a row can be exhausting, because they constantly push to see if they can get two review sessions rather than one, or maybe I could hold an extra problem session outside of class time, or some other suggestion that gives new meaning to the words “above and beyond the call of duty.” In some ways, then, it will be easier on me to have a new crop of students next quarter, who will start out apathetic and with no expectations and then gradually come to believe that it is the TA’s duty to talk them through a problem at 2 am, or some such nonsense.

On the other hand, I was really hoping that I would get to teach the second half of this class. The second quarter is a lot more fun (in my mind) than the first, and I really like seeing students progress through an entire class. They come out so much better than they go in, or at least they do if their teachers do their jobs right. I really liked taking my students all the way through organic chemistry last year; an extra quarter gives you a lot more time to really get to know them. So, I’m a bit sad tonight, knowing that it’s over.

I’m also terribly relieved. I have such a huge pile of research work to do, and theoretically I now have one whole week in which to do it before going home for Christmas. I have so much to do, and it will be really nice to have a good chunk of solid time to just get things done that I need done. Of course, that’s after I finish grading 135 exams tomorrow. That should be fun.

In that spirit, a friend of mine sent me this link earlier. Anyone that knows me knows that I am the world’s worst procrastinator (can anyone say obsessively on time?), but it’s pretty funny anyway. And yes, a large part of the reason that I maintain high levels of productivity is that I practice this “structured procrastination.”

This evening I don’t need to procrastinate, however, as I was good and left the exams at school. I will grade tomorrow, but tonight I knit. I am shocked by this lack of work-a-holism, especially as Branden is out of town (which usually means that I bring work home to do in the evenings). I think I might just like it, though. Those exams will be just as much fun tomorrow morning as they’d be tonight, and I couldn’t just stay home and knit tomorrow if I worked tonight, so for now, I knit!

So, I have a dilemma. Google does not appear to give me email addresses when people leave a comment, so I can’t respond. This seems like bad etiquette. (Especially when you consider how many people respond to every single comment, even though their blogs are much busier than mine!) So, I think I have two options. I can either a)leave the comment settings as they are at the risk of being rude, or b) decide to restrict the settings so that people can only comment if they’re logged in to Google. I don’t like option a because I’d like to be able to respond, and I don’t want to be rude. However, I also dislike option b, because I don’t think that people should have to have a Google account to be able to leave a message. I know that I don’t mind leaving my email address and url on a comment page, but if it tries to force me to log in or sign up for an account I’m not interested. There’s always possibility c, which is that I am just missing the setting that lets me respond. If that’s the case and you know how to change it, please let me know. Otherwise, I think I’m inclined to leave the settings as-is, and beg your forgiveness if it’s rude. Any ideas?

It’s always disappointing at the heights of fantasy to come back down to Earth. It’s usually for the best, though, and I’d always prefer to do it of my own accord rather than wait to be brought crashing down. Why, you ask, might I need to come back?

Well, it has occurred to me (rather reluctantly and not without great resistance) that my family might not be excited by the prospect of receiving hand knitted socks. I can hear your gasp from here; I know, I know. It’s tantamount to heresy to even suggest that such a thing might be possible in a civilized world, but I can’t help but think that they might prefer some other kind of gift. And, as Christmas is about giving something that people want, it seems prudent to do some shopping outside of my knitting bag (or LYS) this holiday season.

This is really too bad, because I have been rather enjoying tromping about in Cat’s book of sock architectures. But, I do think it’s better to bite the bullet and step into a mall rather than make something that will be less than exciting to its recipient. So, we have begun Christmas shopping, and I have shortened my holiday knitting list considerably. I think I’m still going to see what I can get done, and perhaps offer the socks as secondary gifts, but we’ll have to see about that. I think a lot depends on whether or not they seem to be popular at all. I mean, they are just socks, after all, and they are not the gorgeous over-the-top lacy kind, either. I wanted to keep it simple for the sake of the more conservative, so they’re admittedly pretty dull. (The colors and yarns are great, though!)

Ok, enough of this boring planet. Off we go again…

This, of course, frees me up to create various and sundry new projects in the next two weeks without fear of failing to finish the holiday knitting. (I know, that is so cheating…) Branden will be gone all week on a business trip, so I’ll have plenty of time to just kick around by myself and think about new things to knit. I have a huge list of after-holiday projects that I’m excited about, but I do want to spend the before-holiday period working on gifty things. We’ll have to see what I can come up with.

Sound good? You too can be eating a baked, candied apple in 5 mins or less. Here’s how:

One apple
brown sugar
butter (optional)
spice of choice (I like ginger or allspice. Nutmeg or cinnamon would also work well)

Use an apple corer to scoop out the top of the apple (stem end), and remove the core to hollow out the inside. Put hole down on a plate in the microwave, and use the baked potato setting (2-3 mins, if you don’t have a potato setting). When the apple is soft, remove from microwave. Sprinkle brown sugar and spice inside the apple, and add a tiny bit of butter, if desired. Return to the microwave (upright this time), and bake until the sugar boils over the sides of the apple. It takes me about the same amount of time to bake an apple as it does to boil tea water. Sip tea and enjoy your warm, caramel apple. I like mine with a little bit of sharp cheese. Yum!

(Sugar boils at something like 230 degrees F, so keep in mind that this apple is hot and should be allowed to cool before diving in. Ice cream can accelerate the cooling process, if you can’t wait.)

I was so tired on Friday night that I just knew I’d fall right to sleep. And then I didn’t. So, I got up and worked on the toe socks. I decided on a mistake stitch rib (made by ofsetting each row of 2k 2p rib by one stitch), and got started on the ankles. Only, I made a mistake in my mistake stitch rib. A mistake stitch rib is a 2 stitch rib where every other row is offset by one stitch, so that there is a sort of brick-wall effect. It makes a very pretty rib that’s just a little more interesting than a “normal” rib. Walker’s instructions are written for flat, but the pattern is simple enough that it should be easily converted to circular. You need an odd number of stitches to make the offset, so I increased to 51 stitches, and started ribbing. The only problem is that you end up with half a repeat left just before you turn in flat knitting, and you don’t in circular. So, instead of “resetting” my offset every other row by turning the piece, I just kept going. this means that each row moves the knit stitches over one, and makes a diagonal rib rather than a mistake stitch rib. I blame the fact that I can’t even make a mistake stitch rib without mistakes on the fact that I was coming up with this at 1 in the morning. It might be a valid excuse.

Now, I had considered the diagonal rib first but thought that it might not be so great for ankles; I wasn’t sure whether or not it would slump. But, since I ended up with it anyway, I just decided to go with it. It appears not to slump, but it does make a very thick fabric, which led me to make the ankles short so that they don’t require folding over. Even this fairly distinct pattern is hidden by the color changes, so I’m really glad that I didn’t decide to go with the Flame Chevrons; I think they would have completely disappeared. So, my first full pair of Christmas socks is completed, and I have two weeks to go.

Once the toe sock ankles were underway, I took a break from them to begin balling the yarn for the next pair, destined to be for my mom out of Colinette yarn. I opened the skein and dutifully began the balling process, and then the yarn spoke to me. It told me that it just couldn’t become a pair of socks. I am always inclined to listen when yarn speaks to me, because I have learned through trial and error that I’m never happy with the final product if I don’t. So, I tend to change plans if the yarn appears to want to be something other than what I have scheduled for it. I have also just finished reading Clara Parks’ Knitter’s Book of Yarn, and so have begun to get some sort of formal introduction to the art of “yarn whispering.”

(As a side note, it seems to me that yarn whispering is a bit of a misnomer; it’s not about talking at your yarn…that never changes anything at all. It’s about listening to what it’s telling you. So, I prefer to think of myself as a yarn listener.)

Well, this yarn was not whispering. It was shouting. And it was shouting that it does not want to be socks. It is a very tightly spun fingering weight yarn, which gives it great elasticity, but it also means that you can feel every individual stitch in the finished piece (I know, as I have since swatched with it). It’s supposed to be used on size 3 needles, but I’m needing at least a size 5 to get a soft fabric out of it. It’s a gorgoeous green color, and it would be perfect for a lacy leaf pattern, but it will need big needles to stay open enough, which makes a fabric far too open for socks. It really wants to be a display yarn, I think, rather than a comfy hide-in-your-shoes yarn. So, plans have changed. The Colinette will now become a scarf rather than socks, and it will be done with big needles in a lacy pattern. This, of course, requires choosing a lacy pattern. I did the drooping elm leaf pattern on my Trekking socks, and I really like it, but it requires a good background to really see the pattern, and is best when slightly stretched, in my opinion. It’s in my queque of things to try, but it’s not the best option, I think. The bounciness of this yarn requires a pattern that is fairly open, so that it can spring back from blocking and still show that there’s lace in there somewhere without having to be stretched open. I’m thinking that I’ll try the vine lace from Walker. It’s nice and simple, with only one pattern row that gets offset by one stitch to make a 4 row repeat. Nice and easy to memorize, a fairly open pattern, and leafy to match the color. Perfect!

I tried swatching this out at a holiday party that we went to last night, and it was looking pretty good. I love the velvety look of the yarn, which I think comes from it being so very elastic. It also makes a pretty thick lace, which will be good for a scarf intended for New England winters, where it actually has to do something besides look nice. And I really, really love the color. I did use size 5 needles to swatch this out, and it’s too tight. I had actually done a lot more than this, but I was a bad blogger and pulled most of it out before remembering that I have a duty to take pictures, even of projects that aren’t going to make it past the swatch stage. Oops. Next time I will photograph first and frog second, I promise.

So, I am abandoning the sock lessons for the moment. One can’t argue once the yarn has spoken. (And, my fingers have been itching to get back to something lacy anyway).

I promise I will work on my picture-taking after the holidays. (I have such a list of things I’m going to do after the holidays!) I have discovered that our apartment has absolutely horrible lighting, and that I have nowhere to set up good photos that show a pattern on a neutral backgroud besides my beige footstool. I will work on this, and hopefully my photos and staging will improve. Some kind of composition would be nice, rather than just blob o’ yarn photos all the time. I will work on it. Really.