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I’m pretty sure that it is bad form to laugh at a Dark Lord of the Sith, but I couldn’t help myself. Hollywood Disney was hosting Star Wars weekend, and when I saw Darth Maul standing there, posing for pictures and signing autographs, I couldn’t resist.
Jason thought it was as brilliant of an idea as I did, so I marched over and stood in line. He had evidently just come out, so the line in front of us wasn’t very long. I remembered as I watched him pose with children and sign autographs that he didn’t speak. I’m here to tell you that did nothing to dampen his expression of absolute incredulousness when I marched up to him and asked if he would please hold the sock I had been knitting for a picture.
He looks at the yarn. And he looks at me. He’s wearing those creepy red and black theatrical contacts with the yellow iris’. He looks at the yarn. Nothing. I think he’s waiting for me to tell him I’m kidding. You don’t ask the Sith to hold happy stripey wooly things. You fear them.
“Please?” I say. “Look how happy it is. Don’t you want to get some Dark Side on it?”
He looks between me and the sock again.
“You can look disgusted with it.”
So he finally takes it, and I swear he was struggling to keep a straight face the entire time. We finish with the pictures, and he starts inspecting it, as is shown here. Turning it around, looking more closely at the pattern. And then he opens it up and looks through it like a telescope. I thought I was going to die.
Broadripple, originally uploaded by autumnbriars.
My Summer of Socks knitting is kind of off to a lousy start. I cast on for these socks on Saturday, but I have two pairs still on the needles from before summer and they both need to be finished. I had grand ambitions to finish them before the 21st, but I got distracted by my tank top and they sat and didn’t get worked on. I finally finished the top of my Bruce Wayne socks yesterday and have been working the heel flap today. I have the yarn with me to start the second ‘Vog On, but I’ve hardly even looked at it.
The picture here is pretty much the sum of the knitting I’ve done that can actually count towards my SoS progress. Mostly, its been done standing in line at theme parks and on the monorail and boats and busses trying to get between locations.
I’m pretty happy with how its working up so far. The pattern is a simple two row repeat that’s easy to memorize, and I like that it works with the striping yarn instead of against it.
The jury’s still out of the Sockotta yarn. I don’t actively dislike it, but the cotton and nylon make it a little rough on my hands and I always find myself getting excited when I can pick up my Eidos again.
We’re at Disney, having a blast, and I’m getting lots of knitting done. I started and subsequently ripped out Wendy’s SoS sock, and started Broadripple, which met Alice and The Mad Hatter at breakfast.
The Hatter, by the way, says that blue is his favorite color, and that he wears striped socks.
I’m about an inch away from finishing the leg of the second sock, and I’ve just bothered to pull out the first one to compare and found out that the cables are different. I’ve already ripped out the sock once for the same reason, but I thought I had fixed it. Either I went right back to doing what I had done the first time, or my fix wasn’t right.
I agonized about it for awhile, and then I decided something. Screw it. (That’s not actually what I decided, but what I actually decided was, as the Harlot would say, unbecoming of a knitter.)
They aren’t so different that the mistake jumps out at you, and really, how often does a person inspect socks side by side once they’re on a pair of feet? Or, if you want less logic, and nice creative pattern-based rationalization, these are the Bruce Wayne socks, so they’re kind of like he and Batman–the same….but not quite.
Does anyone remember that episode of Roseanne, when the actress who played Becky got replaced, and the new person just walked into the room like nothing was unusual and everyone called her Becky even though they really didn’t look anything alike? And at the end of the show, they did a little song and dance number with both actresses so that everyone could laugh about it, and then they never spoke of it again?
No? Just me?
This blog post is kind of like that show. I’m putting both of the socks out there so we can all have a good chuckle about how Jessi can count to 6, but can’t remember from one sock to the next what she was supposed to be counting to. And then, we’ll never speak of it again.
Jordana Paige: Bella, originally uploaded by autumnbriars.
I keep forgetting to mention that I ordered a Jordana Paige bag. I’m pretty thrilled with it. The pictures on her site are prettier than mine, but I;ll share an actual photo of the actual bag, just because I know when I was shopping, I really wanted to see “action shots.”
The good: I love that it has two separate sections, so that my yarn doesn’t have to either be stored in a ziplock or tangled up with my keys. The center zippered section is great, and replaces the makeup pouch I used to store all my little things for easy access. The fabric is soft by feels durable, and it has little metal feet to keep it off the ground when I set it down. I was worried that the round handles would cut into my shoulder, but they’re actually kind of cushioney, and they’re just long enough that the bag rests at my waist in the little space above my hip. The handles drawstring the bag closed, so there are no sippers to get my yarn (or hair) hung up in.
I really wanted a big bag, that could hold my purse stuff and my knitting and my lunch, but I’m a pretty small person, so its easy for big bags to overwhelm me. This one falls nicely in the middle, and holds just enough. Plus, the green lining is just darling. (Inside pictures are here.)
The not so great: There are no deal breakers about this bag for me, but there are a few things I might have done differently. Since the handles move freely, they spin around after awhile, The stitching where they’re sewn together to form their loops is a little sloppy, so I find myself having to spin them back around to hide the ugly stitching. Not a big deal for me, but I feel like it could be dne more nicely, and of you’re really Type A, it might big you. The snap, which is magnetic, pulls at the fabric of the strap when I use it, and I’m a little worried about it eventually tearing. I assume this is something that would have been tested before the bag went up for sale, so I’m probably worried over nothing. The little slots along one side are great for holding my cell phone and iPod, but I’d like to see a few that are a little wider, to hold, say, a square tape measure, or a little taller to hold my dpns. As it is, the pockets are too narrow or most things, and short enough that my dpns get knocked out.
I’m still deciding how I feel about the center divider. I think maybe its just the way it needs to be in order for the bag to bunch closed, but I also think it might be nice to have it a little taller, to make the halves of the bag more separate and harder for the things to co-mingle.
I think as bags go, though, its pretty perfect and I’m really happy that I decided to order one.
I had the wackiest dream last night, and even more wacky, I mostly remembered it when I woke up.
For some reason, Christine had asked me to knit the American in China socks for her, but instead of actually using Sanguine Gryphon yarn, she wanted me to use this crazy pink Tofutsies yarn she bought, decided she didn’t like, and gave to me. (C, I’m really sorry for giving you such questionable taste in my dreams. My waking mind knows you better than that.)
I start knitting the socks, but for some reason, I have to walk away from them and I’m really disappointed because they needed to be finished quickly.
When I came back, one of the socks was completely finished. My friend and former boss Joye had been in my house for some reason, saw the sock-in-progress and known that it was on a deadline, and finished it for me lickety split. Except that Joye knits very loose, and so the sole of the foot looked too open to me, and there were these weird holes where the bottom of the heel met the back of the heel. They were pretty and symmetrical and kind of cool, but I was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to be there.
I went back and forth for awhile about whether the sole was too open to be wearable, and whether the holes had to go, and then I started to get really worried that Christine would be upset that Joye had knit one of the socks instead of me. That idea really, really upset me for some reason, and I finally picked up the phone to call her and ask…and I woke up
So yeah. Figure that one out.
I’ve been knitting on a baby sweater for no reason other than that my last, failed attempt at a baby sweater was taunting me, and the yarn looked so pretty and soft. The pattern that I’m using is a raglan, knit top down, and I’ve just started on the first sleeve after casting off the body.
I’m pretty happy with it, and the whole time I’ve been knitting, I haven’t been able to stop wondering: Why the hell would anyone ever knit a raglan sweater in pieces? First of all, the seaming. Who wants to seam when they don’t have to? Second of all, its easier to fit. If I had a small wriggling thing, I could try the sweater on as I went to see if it fit. Third of all? The seaming. Everything being in one piece means nothing has to match and be puzzled together later so that you can try to sew it together. Operative word being tried because even though you measured the pieces five times and they were the same size when you finished them, when you go back to put them together, one of them has suddenly, magically grown an inch and a half.
Seriously, is there a reason to knit sweaters in pieces? Any benefit at all?
Mohair, originally uploaded by autumnbriars.
Christine came over yesterday, and we went to check out A Tangled Skein, a LYS I’ve been looking for an excuse to visit.
The store itself was wonderful–just big enough without being overwhelming, good variety of old standbys and local stuff, warm and friendly staff, and I’ll definitely go back. I got to fondle lots of sock yarn, look closely at a pair of Darn Pretty Needles, (I’m not cultured enough to see where they’re so different from Knit Picks Harmony wood) and check out Flat Feet (love the idea, not smitten with the colors).
The fluffiness above came home with me and is destined to become Branching Out. I also picked up a set of Lantern Moon Sock Sticks in ebony. More on those once I’ve used them enough to form an opinion.
As is nearly always the case when Christine and I go somewhere, the trip was an adventure. We were driving home, following the directions supplied by my navigation doohickey, and I am quite sure they weren’t the best possible route.
We stop at a redlight, and watch a weed whacker bounce out of the back of a big old pickup. Three things happened simultaneously , and in the span on one redlight.
One: The car who was directly behind the truck stopped dead in the face of the weedwhacker. The traffic was too heavy to swerve around it, and the car was too small to risk driving over it, even if the driver had been enough of a jerk to do such a thing. The driver–a slight Asian boy–gets out, delicately picks up the roadblock, and carries it over to the side of the road, setting it gently on the grass next to the sidewalk.
Two: The truck, suddenly aware that it is one weedwhacker short of a load, jumps a curb to park on a little grassy area and the passenger–a large redneck looking man with an ugly mustache–starts hauling ass across the road to get his missing equipment.
Three: A big, white pickup with a cap over to bed turns the corner, slows down, and steals the weedwacker! Except that somehow, we don’t see this happen. All we see is that suddenly, the weedwacker is no longer there.
By the time Mustache Man made it to the corner, there was nothing there, though clearly, it had been mere seconds before. I guess the guy who had taken it realized he was in danger of being busted, or maybe just felt guilty, because the next think we knew the truck was slowing down just enough to open the door and hand the weedwhacker out to Mustache Man.
Seriously? Who steals a weed whacker? And what kind of neighborhood were we in that lawn equipment couldn’t last three seconds on the side of the road? All Christine could say was, “Don’t drop your yarn!” No kidding.
…that we never rate yarn based on its frogability?
I’m starting to realize that its just as important to me as how soft a yarn is, or how much I like the color, or what the stitch definition is like.
Some yarns seem to be really friendly and forgiving in that respect. I’ve had issues with the second sock I’m knitting from Sanguine Gryphon’s Eidos (it may be my favorite sock yarn ever), and I’ve lost track of how many times I ripped and reknit the first few inches. The yarn is perfectly okay with that, and its just as nice as when I started.
Other yarns, like the ^%&#* Cathay that I used for my tank, are pretty freaking worthless once you’ve torn them back. You need to be careful not to screw up, and sure that you want to know what you’re doing before you start. This is not yarn to experiment with.
And then there are all manners of lovely yarn, like recycled silk or loopy mohair or, I’m told, pure silk, that are just too scrappy or textured or delicate or whatever to be ripped back once they’ve been stitched together.
This is not a fact that people often make known. I am sure than smarter knitters than I might be able to intuit how a yarn will behave, but it is not a talent I possess. I knit most of a bag (incorrectly) from recycled sari silk, and will forever be stuck with the pieces because the stitches? They don’t come apart again. I think this sort of information should totally be a part of a standard yarn review.
Cathay Top–Preblocking, originally uploaded by autumnbriars.
Lutea Lace-Shoulder Shell
Interweave Knits Summer 2007
6 balls Debbie Bliss Cathay
Size 6 needles
I got it into my head that I was going to have this finished by the end of the weekend, and here it is! It still needs to be blocked, but its close enough that I’m calling it done–and it even fits!
If I had to do it again (which I never will), I would have made it a little longer. It isn’t short, per se, but the length isn’t so flattering with most of my jeans, since they’re fairly low rise. Its fine with mid-rise bottoms, and would be fine with anything on someone who didn’t have hips.
I’ve heard several people say that the pattern was confusing to interpret, and I agree completely. Its mostly accurate, but some of the phrasing sounds like its asking you to do something different than what you’re really supposed to be doing. There is one bit of errata, and it isn’t quite right, so knitting the first lace shoulder was a little bit of an adventure.
The finished fabric is nice, but I have nothing ladylike to say about Cathay. It was, I think, a nice substitute for the recommended yarn, but it was a complete bitch to work with. It was completely splitty, no matter how dull or pointy the needles I used were, and it was totally unforgiving about being torn back. The yarn would wind up holding the crink, and getting all frazzled, with the individual strands being all pulled out of place, just adding to the splittyness.
All in all, though, for my first successful attempt at a sweater, I think its not too shabby.
