DesigKnit

Fun – diverting, amusing, entertaining (what blog posts are supposed to be)

Funk – a state characterized by lack of energy or motivation (where I find myself)

Funky – strange, but oddly cool, hip (the project on my needles)

I don’t know what’s wrong with me this week…I am just not feeling motivated or excited at all. Ok, I do know what’s wrong. My back is acting up and I’m not sleeping, which leads to taking of Tylenol PM, which leads to grogginess and somewhat improved sleep. The somewhat improved sleep is not much improved, and thus I remain tired and cranky. A typical end of quarter.

This funk might also be slightly related to the fact that I haven’t been out in daylight for more than a few minutes a day all week, and when I was, it was raining. Oh, December in Seattle is a wonderful thing. On the (getting) brighter side, the solstice is only 2 weeks away. Two weeks from today I will have been married 5 years. Two weeks from today I will also be in Massachusetts. That’s right; we’re going home for the holidays after all. That does extend my knitting time, but it also shortens the collapse at home in between quarters time. That’s ok, though. It will be nice to be back, if only for a week.

It might also be because I am suddenly one short month away from being the senior graduate student in our group. as if having been married for 5 years weren’t enough to make me feel old, I am now also supposedly the person that knows the most in my lab, besides my advisor. Wierd. I guess that’s what happens when you’re in your 4th year. It could be exciting, except that the end isn’t in sight. I’m hoping another year or two will do it, but science has a way of not cooperating with your plans, and if there were ever a project that didn’t cooperate, it’s mine. Ah, well. What’s a few more years in school? I’ve been at it continuously for 20 yrs now, so a few more shouldn’t make much difference, right? I think 20 is a scarier number than 5. I should have left that thought unexpressed.

So far, not much fun in this post, I think. Too much “k”, not enough “y” yet. The socks are pretty funky, though. At least this project appears to be going along swimmingly. I have turned the heels, and now just need to work the leg portion of the second pair of socks (I’m starting to get nervous again about how long the holiday knitting is taking…2 weeks, 1 and a half pair of gift-able socks…). I want to do a pattern, but I just don’t know which one. I’m afraid that a complicated one will be too much with such a high-contrast yarn, but something really simple might not show up at all. Hmmm. I think this calls for a Walker consultation. I will have to get back to you on how that goes. For now, look at them funky feet!

Note to self: it is very difficult to get the camera once hobbled by a pair of socks still on circular needles. Either get the camera first, or prepare to call in tolerant husband to fetch it.

There’s a little pooling going on here, but I am determined not to be bothered by it. The colors are so pretty. It shouldn’t matter that they all want to group together on me, right?

I am ready for the heel turn on the toes socks tonight (at this rate, I might actually make it through Christmas knitting list!). I decided to switch to the upstream sock pattern instead of the Spiraling Coriolis because the SC said you needed to be able to freely rotate the toe, and that doesn’t work when there are, um, toes on the toe. I could probably have figured out how to alter the pattern (in fact, I’m pretty sure I know exactly what I needed to do), but I didn’t want to take a chance on holiday knitting, and besides, this exercise is about following the pattern. I don’t know why that is such a challenge for me. Even when I like the way the pattern looks, I always have to change something. I just can’t help it.

Well, I resisted the first temptation, but I am going to give in to the second. I have discovered that I need the slower increase in the arch expansion and the faster increase in the toes. Remember the pointy toes from last time? That was me miscounting and increasing every 4th row rather than every third. When I did it right the second time, the toe came out infinitely better. But, at least for the Bearfoot yarn, I appear to need that slower increase to match my row gaugefor the instep; I ended up with too many stitches in the arch a little too fast, which made it a little baggy for my liking. I was just checking the length to decide whether it’s time to heel turn, and inadvertently put the sock on upside down (and on the wrong foot, of course, so that the toes lined up right). A happy mistake, as it turns out. The steep increase is too much on the top of my foot, but it hugs my arch beautifully if the sock is upside down. I’m not sure that I understand why this is, but I’m going to run with it. It’s so much better upside down! This time, I will change the pattern. I think Cat would approve. So, on to the heel turn. I will post pictures again soon, but really nothing has changed except the length. It’s all stockinette, so it’s not too exciting.

Oh, and one more thing. I’m feeling the need to do something different on the ankles. I don’t want the whole sock to be stockinette. I learned from the last Bearfoot yarn (that turned into a scarf…) that lace and handpainted don’t go well together. I want something fun, though. I’m thinking maybe the Flame Chevron from Walker? I can’t tell if it would be good or bad with this yarn. I guess I could always try a few rows and find out….

I don’t think that’s a word, but it should be. I got my Ravelry invite this morning! Of course it popped up just as I was settling in to get some work done, so I had to be good and disciplined and wait until tonight to look at it. I’ll be heading over there briefly before getting back to socks. My username is EGunn, if anyone is looking. =)

(Oh, and I did check…raveled is a real word)

Beginnings of the week are always a little hard on the knitting schedule. Monday is slow after the weekend’s knitting burst (and this week my hands were hurting and I had to baby them…grr…), Tuesdays are teaching day, which makes for an early evening, and Wednesdays I have group meeting until 8:30 or so (we got out early tonight…hooray!). So, I have nothing much new to say or show. I have some old stuff that I’ve been meaning to post about, but I want to put some more inches on the toe socks before bed. I’m up to the arch increases, and besides a little pooling everything is going well. Since I’m knitting this pair simultaneously, there should be no need for a 3rd sock this time around.

So, since I have no knitting to share, how’s about a science picture?

This is one of my research samples (made from phthalic acid, if you really want to know). So pretty. So complicated. I wonder if I’ll ever figure out exactly why they look this way?

I was getting a panicky what-have-I-done sort of feeling about the holiday knitting at the end of last week. One tangle and half a sock was about all I had to show for a whole week of knitting. So, this weekend I sat myself down and got some stitching done. The result?

I now have two completed socks, and a little less of the sinking feeling that this is impossible.

However, the fact that these socks look pretty similar on my feet is a bit deceptive. First, I discovered that I had miscounted the rows between increases when I did the first toe (I thought it looked awfully pointy…). The second one is much better.

Worse, though, I mismeasured on the second one, and it’s about 3/4 of an inch shorter than the first! It fits a lot better, in my opinion, but they don’t match.

Of course this means that I now need to pull one out and knit a third sock. I’m not feeling too motivated on that at the moment. First, these are for the sister that I least expect to care about or ever wear her new knitted objects. This makes it hard to start over when I have a pressing deadline. Why do I think she won’t care? Well, I was inspired this summer to make a tank top out of bamboo silk (2 skeins of Southwest Trading Co, a total of 500 yds, on size 5 needles, I might add). It took me about a month to design and make. The pictures are lousy, but they give you an idea.

I also made a shrug to go with it, altering a pattern from Knitty (another 2 skeins, almost).

As far as I know, it hasn’t been worn once. She tried it on, I think. Maybe. No one ever saw it on her. I’ve asked if it fits, and I am told it does. It’s just not worn (nor has she returned it so that I can tear it out and reuse that wonderful yarn!). This makes me a little reluctant to dive right in and knit a third sock that won’t be used. But then, my crafter’s integrity won’t let me give a gift that isn’t perfect, either. So, I will be knitting a third sock. Just not tonight. I’m not up for that right now.

What will I be doing instead? That’s right…toe socks! Branden untangled that whole knot for me (well, I took a good crack at it the first night, and then he took over from there). Think I’m a little spoiled? Yeah, me too. I couldn’t sleep again last night, and so I wound the untangled yarn into balls before heading off to bed at about 2:30 this morning, and now it’s all ready to go.

Doesn’t it look sad in those tight little balls? Compared to the luxurious flow of the open skein, balls are just sad. And what was the first thing that happened with the balls? That’s right…a minor tangle. I still like the other way better, but I’m sticking with wound yarn for now, and I’ll just have to go chasing the balls under chairs when they roll off on me. I’ll just have to wait until there is no holiday deadline (or I open a new skein…) to go back to the open skeins, I think. Anyway. I have to get some inches put on those socks, and it’s getting late.

Oh my… I have not one, but two comments suddenly. This means that someone has read my blog. It’s funny, but I suddenly feel slightly self-conscious. Here I am, posting to the internet for people to read, and it surprises me that someone is there. How wonderfully inconsistent of me! Well, I will now have to refrain from referring to my nonexistent readers, in case a few actually exist out there. Welcome, and thanks for stopping by!

I managed to get a tangle in the toe sock yarn. And no, it was not caused by cats, open skeins, or even spontaneous tangling. It was caused by my own stupidity. Branden has suggested before that I should work one sock from the inside of a ball of yarn, and one from the outside, thus working on both socks at once from only one ball. I groaned and told his that that would make an unholy mess. Knowing this, as I did, I’m not sure what possessed me to try it with an open skein. I think it was mainly that I just wanted to finish connecting the toes, and I figured it wouldn’t be much twisting of ends. Well, it was. I worked on the tangle for a while, but have put it aside for now. Actually, I put it aside and Branden picked it up. He’s an engineer, and just loves puzzles. Apparently, a large knotted hunk of yarn is a good puzzle. I won’t argue.

Meanwhile, I started working on another pair of socks in Lana Grossa. I had heard really good things about it, but hadn’t tried it yet. I think I’m not a fan. This might be because the entire center of the ball was a knotted mess (which was an unwelcome discovery when I was using it to run away from the other knotted mess I’d just created…), but I think it’s mainly the feel of the yarn. In the ball and in the sock, it feels fine. It’s a really nice wool, and it’s nice and soft when balled or worked up. In between, however, it feels sticky to me. I can’t think of a better way to describe it than sticky. I love the colors, it’s striping nicely, and I like the finished product, but the process is a little less fun with sticky yarn. The striping is also a little too well defined for a complicated stitch pattern. I’m doing the sidestream architecture, which is just a very basic sock, and letting the self-striping of the yarn take care of the rest. I did want a little bit of a pattern in the ankle, though, so I did some feather and fan, since it’s a pretty stripe-y patterned stitch and went along well with the strong color changes of the yarn. It doesn’t show up well in this picture at all, unfortunately, but it’s there. I am hoping that it will transform into a more obvious delicately wavy pattern with blocking. We’ll see. For now, at least you can see the colors.

This sock has taught me a couple of things.

First, there are a lot of stitches in a sock. I usually consider myself a fairly fast knitter, but I am only creeping along in the sock world. I was really surprised by my lack of progress, until I realized that I have a gauge of 7 spi, but 11 rows per inch! I think Cat’s book says that most people have an 8 or 9 rpi count, and I have 9 rpi for the Bearfoot yarn, but with the Lana Grossa it’s 11. So, assuming an average of, say, 70 stitches per round (it’s 62 through the foot and ankle, and up to 85 through the heel), my 11 inch sock suddenly has over 9000 stitches in it. And that’s for an ankle sock! (My family has huge feet. Even my 10-year-old sister has a women’s 9 foot. Mine are 10 and a half). That makes me feel a little bit better about the slow progress. I can understand it taking this long to make 9000 stitches.

Second, I have discovered that I prefer my socks tight. If I use my gauge, measure my foot, and calculate my stitch numbers based on Cat’s charts, I end up with a sock that is, in m opinion, far too loose. I like a sock to really hug my foot, and in order to do that I think I’d have to decrease my stitch count by at least 10%. I suppose that’s good news for the next sock; fewer stitches means less time, and I am trying to pack a lot of sock in before Christmas…