Just One More Problem

The good news is that I got all the knitting done I needed for people's presents.

The bad news is I miscalculated.  You see, when I said 'I need to get this done by next weekend'. I was thinking 'I need to finish knitting this by next weekend'. Make sense, right?  Just one little issue: everything also needs to be blocked.  Well, since I got everything done by Thursday, I was able to start blocking it all:

But I forgot something.  My mom's sweater, made out of nice warm alpaca-silk yarn that is brittle when wet?  That one?  Takes forever to dry.  It's been sitting out there since Wednesday night and it is still wet. 

I have to pack it up tomorrow morning.  It may have to be in a bag in my knitting bag, the way this is going, and even that's going to be an iffy trip.  Even though I'm hoping re-purposing my space heater as a blow dryer for it will dry it....naw, I'm screwed.

I Don't Think I'll Learn Though

So I'm currently knitting a sweater:

I should say, finally knitting a sweater.  It's been awhile, and I have a lot of sweater amounts of yarn in my stash.  Anyway, as you can see, I've been at it awhile, and have the main body of the sweater done.

This pattern, interestedly enough, suggests that I knit the button-band and collar before the sleeves.  I could have ignored these instructions, but I decided why the hell not (despite the fact that it also suggested working the fronts at the same time with two balls of yarn attached...not doing that again).  So I grabbed my needle and a crochet hook and started picking up stitches....until I got to the start of the V-neck and realized that I'm an idiot:

The needle cord I used to knit the rest of the sweater isn't going to be long enough to pick up all the stitches on both sides of the sweater as well as the neckline.  Damnit.  Time to rip it all out and...

Oh, wait.  I'm using interchangeable needles.  Maybe I'll just run up a longer cord with a smaller needle and switch needle heads and...

Oh crap.  Where did all my 47" cords go?

Notice a color trend here?

Where there's one.  Had to start that one recently, didn't I.  Ok, now I need to find where my other 47" cord went and...

Oh, right, I randomly bought a set of connectors ages ago.  So now I can just remove the head at the other end and attach another 40" cord and:

Problem solved.  I love interchangeable needles.

Crash Landing

Despite the fact that I have all this sock yarn that I should be using, I've been focusing my subway knitting time on an old project:

Yep.  Squares again.  I realized recently that I had technically started this project over a year ago, and hadn't touched it in months.  Of course, this UFO's whole role was to give me something easy to do when I was between projects.  Unfortunately, I've been lining up my projects very well, and so I hadn't done much with it until recently.  And the only reason I picked it up again is because I've been so focused on sewing (which, yes, I'm still doing.  It will never end!), and then my sweater got too big to do on the subway:

(It's being knit on...twice a week...and is starting to annoy me....it'll never end either).  So while I haven't got a lot of knitting done, I'm at least making progress on an old project. That's what I keep telling myself, at least.

Though, I kind of want to start a pair of socks.  Because all I need is another project.  Oye.

Negative Yarn Craft

I got nothing of value at the moment, but two other things:

I made this simple seed stitch cowl last December, out of a random ball of royal blue alpaca I picked up:

It didn't take me too long (I don't think I ever mentioned making it here), and despite my not-love for cowls, I started wearing it all the time.  Since I wear it all the time, I went out last Friday with it...and promptly managed to misplace it in a bar. When I got to the bar, I know I put it with my coat, and I thought I stuffed it in my coat sleeve, but it wasn't there or anywhere nearby when I went to move the coat, oh I don't know, maybe forty minutes later.

I think this is the first time I've managed to lose on of my projects.  Well, at least ones that weren't crappy that I didn't care about. And it's not like it'll be hard to make another.  I just got to go spend $15 on another skein and re-do it.  But it wasn't in my plans, and I'm pissed off at myself, but what else is new?

The second is that I'm cheating on my yarn.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I've been knitting.  I finished the fingerless gloves I was working on a bit ago:

And I've been steadly working on my simple top-down raglan sweater (mostly on my morning commute, as I always get a seat on the subway then):

But that's not what I've been spending most of my time working on.  I'm sewing instead.  Despite the fact that I barely know how to sew and, oh yeah, don't own a sewing machine nor have the room or desire to get one. Because I'm ambivalent at best about sewing or any craft involving using a straight needle and tiny thread, and this isn't a long term new craft for me.

This seems out of the blue, but I've been planning this project for awhile now.  I'm hoping to go to a couple of SCA events this year, and I need better garb. However, any garb on the internet is either the same mass-produced inauthentic stuff (and I have enough of that) or really expensive for even the simplest of things (which I understand, but still).  Or actually, make that 'and really expensive (which I understand for the authentic stuff but otherwise, no, rip-off)'.  It came down to either spending hundreds of dollars on basic garb or making it myself for half that.  Given that currently I'm not a member and am only planning to do two weekend events...yeah.  I'm already going to be investing too much money in it because it is a big money sink (more than yarn craft), and that's even given the fact that I bum space in my sister's tent and camping supplies from my family.

To bring it back to yarn craft, I feel like the whole falling in head first with the knitting and crochet in the last couple of years has made me infinitely more patient at making stuff (well, may also just be me getting older, but whatever).  Four or five years ago I wouldn't be able to spend two months working on a sweater, no matter how much I liked the idea.  I just did that.  Of course, there's a limit, but the whole garb issue now falls on the 'screw it, I'll learn to make it' side.

So that's what I'm doing instead of blogging.  Maybe next week I'll get this thing back on topic.  Maybe.

The Importance of Dye Lots

This is why you buy enough yarn of the same dye lot (or at least visibly match it when you buy more than one dye lot):

Now, for this project I both knew this was going to happen (you don't buy yarn two years later expecting to match dye lots) and don't really care that it did (it's a couch wrap small blanket that will live in my apartment).  However, I still wasn't expecting the color to be that off.  This isn't just slightly different, this is whole 'nother color of blue different.

In other news, I finished the couch wrap I was making up the pattern for.  Which isn't a wrap.  It's not even a big shawl.  It's as big as the fleece blanket I was trying to replace.  Somewhere, I had a math fail when I calculated how many chains to do.  So when I get around to writing up this pattern, I have to re-do all my calculations so it is a couch wrap.  Since you got two patterns last week, I'm not in a rush now.  Especially since I now get to work on a sweater for myself:

The pattern is the Professoressa Cardigan by Connie Chang Chinchino.  This will replace a store bought work cardigan I always wear (the temperature in my office is not consistent no matter what time of year it is).  It's been my plan to replace it for awhile, or just add some variety, but now it has to be done since the current one has a small hole in the sleeve.  Oye.

I'm using Blue Moon Fiber Arts' Woobu in, believe it or not, the Smoke on the Water colorway (look it up on their site.  It shows a dark purple color.  Mine is gray).  I just started this last week and I'm in love with this yarn already.  By far one of the best yarns I've work with, and hopefully it wears the same way.  Being that I found this yarn randomly at Rhinebeck, it was a good pick.

One point about the yarn though: I'm lucky I read up on it on Ravelry before starting this project.  All the comments were along the lines of 'this yarn rocks but my sweater grew'.  So I did a proper swatch and, yes, it grows and your gauge will change.  I'm using that to my advantage, actually.  Plan for it and you'll be fine.

I know it's pretty late for half the holidays now, but happy holidays everyone! 

The (Late) Rhinebeck Debrief

I know it's already been a week since the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival.  I also know that I got home Tuesday morning instead of Monday afternoon, had to do all my chores for that weekend on Tuesday (including laundry), and felt crappy with allergies all week because that's just my luck.  I also had my usually weekly stuff and then I went and saw Epica play yesterday (which was awesome, but meant I didn't get home till 3 in the morning).

Anyway, I had a blast at Rhinebeck. I'll start from the beginning.

The Class
After crashing at one of my sister's apartments and going to a brewpub with a really good pumpkin beer on Friday, I drove up to Rhinebeck early Saturday morning so I could be at the fairgrounds in time for my class.  I, of course, misjudged traffic so my first plan of grabbing breakfast and dropping my stuff off at my other sister's apartment failed. I was lucky one of the food vendors was serving food before the fair technically opened and that the workshop area had free coffee. Of course I found this out during the class, so I spent the first part of the class in a pre-coffee daze.  It could have been worse.

I signed up for the Introduction to Sweater Design workshop by Donna Kay.  Before I took the class, I didn't know the instructor or what exactly we would cover.  The class ended up being more of a lecture, but it was funny and enjoyable.  We covered tips and things to keep in mind when designing...how to swatch to figure out if the yarn you have works with your idea, how to use different types of graph paper to make sure your calculations work and everything's proportional (this would have helped tremendously for the baby sweater.  Also, I never knew knitter's graph paper existed), touched upon originality and copyright in patterns, and other many random tips to keep in mind (like don't shove every idea you have into one sweater.   I kind of knew this, but I'm also guilty of doing it). Many of the things mentioned were also conveniently given on a handout, so I didn't have to remember everything (yay reference materials).   What we didn't get to was actually doing anything with the yarn and other materials we brought.  It was obviously meant to be a longer course, yet we only had four hours and the written material covered the whole time frame.

Overall, I think I was expecting more, but I'm not disappointed that I took this class. It was enjoyable, and it did give you a method of getting from idea to complete design, which was something I needed to hear, as I'm lacking a good method right now.

The Fair
Last year, I went on Sunday only.  Because of this, it was shocking to see how crowded this event got on Saturday.  When scoping out vendors the rest of the first day (first with some friends and later with my mother), it was hard to even stop and look at stuff.  I wasn't as shocked at the crowds as my mother, though, who had 1) never been and 2) was under the impression that the Sheep and Wool Festival was simply a local fair.  I informed her that it was a big event in the yarn crafting world and people come from all over...hell, that's how I learned about it.  My local sister simply said (after the fact):  'Duchess County doesn't do small events'.

*Side Note*
The New York State Sheep and Wool Festival and Breed Ewe Sale is the official name of this event:

Sorry for the slightly blurry picture; I took this through my windshield when stuck in traffic

I think most yarn crafter attendees know this, but for some reason in our world it's called Rhinebeck.  This works fine if the context it's used in is 'major yarn crafter events'.  Calling the event Rhinebeck to the locals, however,  gets you inquisitive or odd looks, as Rhinebeck is the town where the fairgrounds are located, and the town is a tourist trap in its own right (a nice one, but it is).  Also, the fairgrounds are known locally better as the site of the Duchess County Fair, which is (I think) the biggest county fair in New York.  Therefore, calling it Rhinebeck really doesn't make sense at all (though since it's in use and it's shorter by far than the proper name, I'll still use it.  In the right context of course).  Do I get my local cred back now?
*End Side Note*

I spent most of Saturday scoping out some vendors and got some yarn.  I also helped my mom pick out nice alpaca yarn to crochet a shawl.  We also checked out the sheep, for which I got lots of pictures of because I remembered to bring my camera:

After having dinner with the family and crashing at the local sister's apartment (who lives ten minutes away; I'm so lucky), I went back to the fair on Sunday with both my sisters.  We found the alpacas and llamas (which my mom and I missed), though my camera decided to die on me as soon as I tried taking pictures of them (and I had just replaced the batteries!  Stupid me must have used bad batteries).  I bought more yarn than I've ever bought at one time because it was my birthday, I had extra money, I have tons of projects I want to do, and 'oo, pretty sock yarn...I like knitting socks!'.  I'll put that in it's own section though.

Also, I'm pretty sure I passed the Yarn Harlot in one of the vendor buildings, though she was going the opposite way and it was a little too crowded to do a good double take (or do that sneaky picture thing with my cell phone...I forget what it's called...Kinnering, maybe?).  That, and my sisters, not being in the yarn crafting world as I am, hadn't noticed and kept going, and I was trying to not lose them.  I tried slowing them down by telling them 'hey, I think we just passed someone famous in the knitting world', but they didn't care.  They were already putting up with my lingering at vendors to buy all the yarn, so I dropped it.

I also showed off my socks (which I wore on Sunday) to the vendor who's yarn I knit them from.  She liked them.

The Yarn
I'm surprised I fit all of this into my suitcase and a shopping bag:

The unfortunate consequence of this is I now have more stash than the Tupperware container can hold, even after taking out all the yarn associated with projects I'm working on.  I had to go buy another small container to shove under my futon to hold the rest of it, and a storage ottoman to hold my tools.

For one, I found a vendor selling that same damn wool I had the equal number of similar colors issue with...and it was half off.  Me, not wanting to deal with the whole two equal colors thing, bought four more skeins of black

I would have bought the charcoal color, but they didn't have it (because no one does, it seems).  Now, I'm not sure if I'm going to go with my original plan of knitting the basic sweater I have a pattern for, or still make up my own pattern.  I'll see.

I also bought enough yarn for two sweaters:

The gray skeins (its a cool smoky gray...picture doesn't do the color justice) are the first thing I acquired after the black wool. They will be a work cardigan (and unless I completely misjudged the yarn, they will be this cardigan).  The blue...well, I was looking for DK weight yarn but found this worsted weight in the perfect shade of blue, while their DK weight was slightly lighter.  So I said 'screw it, I have worsted weight sweater patterns', and bought it.  That blue wool is one of the softest I've ever felt (the woman standing behind me in line thought so too, and asked me if I was just going to curl up with it because she was tempted to do that).  It will be a nice sweater, though I have yet to decide exactly what pattern.

I also bought tons of sock yarn, because all I needed was more sock yarn:

I tried to not buy it all in blue and blue-black shades.  There's one thing I do (and it's at its worst at Rhinebeck) is that the yarn I'll be drawn to at first will inevitably be royal blue or blue dark variegated yarn  (It's worse if its cashmere.  I don't know how I know it's cashmere until I read the label, but I will inevitably find the cashmere yarn first.  Then I find the price and run away).  So I bought gray and dark purple as well.

The light blue one is alpaca and silk sock yarn, and you can guess by the last paragraph that it's not for me.  I'm not giving up on the hat pattern, but I decided that it'd be better if I set my sights a little lower and make my mom socks for Hanukkah instead.  The funny thing about this is that when I showed her all the sock yarn, she first went to the gray ones (which are rather soft wool; they're my favorite by feel) and cooed over that one.  The surprising thing to me is that she did it because she liked the color.  But it was all good when I pointed out that the light blue was alpaca.  She conceded that she would love alpaca socks, though she would only wear them in the house (we'll see how long that lasts.  She wears the $130 sweater I made her to shovel snow.  I bet you she'll wear them to shovel snow in as well). I'll have to remember to buy that gray sock yarn for her next year for real socks, though.

On the other hand, one of my sisters convince my other sister and me to try drop spindling:

That started when we found cheap small balls of angora roving.  The 'other sister' is a bunny lover, so we were scoping out angora vendors to see angora rabbits.  One of these vendors didn't have rabbits, but they had royal blue angora roving for $6.00.  What did I say about me and the jewel tone blues?  Once I pointed it out as 'pretty, but I can't spin so screw it' the conversation went from bunnies to 'you should try to drop spindle, I can teach you!  It's easy!'

Yeah, two things about that.  One, it's not that easy.  Two, my sister was talking herself up, and when she said she could drop spindle, it meant she owned one and had spun some 'yarn'. I tried after we left the fair with a little bit of the roving and I got nothing but messed up roving. Oye. I'm still going to try to learn, but I need to set some time aside and research it.  I know it can be done; someone in my knitting group had caved to the drop spindles everywhere at Rhinebeck herself, and had already learned enough in the three days between these two events to make nicer thread than my sister had.

Conclusion
All in all, it was fun, and I would do it all again. Hopefully I'll have most of this yarn compiled into projects by then!

It's a good excuse to see the beauty of a Hudson Valley fall anyway.  It's amazing how much you miss in the city.

This is in Ulster County, not Duchess, but the same lovely tree colors

The Dilemma of Classes

If any of you went to VogueKnitting Live New York last year, you probably received an email stating that you could pre-register a couple of weeks ago (turns out, you can only pre-register for the crazy expensive all-inclusive packages, so the rest of us are stuck waiting).  Ok, cool, I thought.  Now I won't sign up last minute...hm, class list; maybe I should take a class this time...

As I was looking down the list of classes, I noticed a lot of them are of the vein 'learn a this technique' or 'learn more ways to cast-on and off'.  Which is all fun and good...except I could find you instructions for ten different ways of casting on in ten minutes just sitting here at my computer.  I could even find a couple of videos for some of them if written instructions aren't your thing.  What's the point, then, of spending around $50-$60 to learn something I could just Google, or even spend at most $25-$30 for a book that has that has ten times more information that I can refer to indefinitely?

Now, I do get that there are people out there that need or want the physical presence of the instructor and the interactive instruction to learn something in knitting and crocheting, no matter how simple.  The point of this post isn't to behoove them, or make fun of the fact that the classes exist. No.  My dilemma, as an active self-teacher, is at what point is taking the class worth it?  At what point is what is being taught too complicated to detail on a web site, show on a YouTube video, or follow from a book?  What wisdom can only be found by paying $60 for a class?

It's not an easy question, though I have some notion of the answer.  You see, a couple of months ago I decided to make a mini-vacation out of Rhinebeck, partly as a gift to myself for last July (see, I *can* sign up for these things before the last minute). Since I earned overtime for that month, money wasn't so much of a concern.  So, the first thing I did was decide to take a class.  Unlike VogueKnitting Live, however, I looked through the class list for Rhinebeck once and immediately found what I wanted to take.  I'm going to be learning how to design a sweater.

Of course, I've already technically designed a sweater.  Two, if you count this disaster.  So why that class?  Because I haven't been successful in actually getting a pattern down, and I'm hoping that learning some techniques for designing will help me knock out my half-assed design-on-the-fly methodology that isn't working as well as I'd like.  Also, unlike cast on techniques or how to do stranded color-work, learning design and pattern-writing isn't a concrete, step-by-step process.   There's no 'do x, then y', so it doesn't lend itself to online tutorials, nor does it benefit designers to over-think themselves and explain it for free.  Sure, there's books out there.  I own a couple and have more in my (private) Amazon wish list. But what I've done obviously isn't enough.

So, is my self-teaching limit at the point of designing from scratch?  No, I don't think so; there's more books I can read, and I could benefit from a good stitch dictionary right now at least.  But it is the point where self-teaching becomes experimental and frustrating; where there's no straight how-to and over-researching is paralyzing so I do too little of it, ending up stuck.  It makes me realize how little I know of this craft.  So, when money isn't an object and I'm treating myself, it makes some sense to take the class.  Who knows, it may help, and hopefully it's fun.

But that brings me back to VogueKnitting.  Can I justify even taking a class on design when I have to justify spending the money?  Can I justify any of them?  That's my dilemma, and at this point that depends what I end up using from any class I rationalize myself into taking.

Knowing me, I'll end up signing up for something anyway.  It's not like I needed to attend a lecture either, but I've been to one of those already (it was more due to the pricing structure and wanting to get the hell out of my apartment that time).  I have into November 27th to decide before it costs more.

I Seem to Plan These Things at the Last Minute

So, in true me fashion, I found out last week that Vogue Knitting Live was being held this weekend in Manhattan, and therefore made last minute plans to go.  Which I can do, since I now don't just live close to the city, but now live close enough where attending was just a matter of hopping on the subway.

Unfortunately, having just moved (as well as had some other unforeseen cost sinks) meant I couldn't afford to take any classes, not that there was a good selection the last week of registration anyway. I ended up doing the 'I Heart NY' package, since paying for that cost just as much as paying for two day marketplace pass, and got you a lecture on top of it.  It ended up working out, as I not only went Saturday to attend the lecture as I had planned to in the beginning, but went Sunday to attend one of the free panels as well.  Though, being in the marketplace for two days didn't help my budget much.  But let me start from the beginning here.

In General
At first, I wasn't too sure about this event.  I walked around the marketplace first, saw projects I liked, but not a lot of yarn caught my eye.  Contrasting that to Rhinebeck where I saw tons of yarn I liked, it was a little disheartening at first.  I'm thinking that part of the reason was that I was trying to be more cautious with my money and space (in contrast to Rhinebeck, where I didn't have a budget or space constraints), and therefore only glanced at all the nice cashmere and silk yarns that are at these events.  The other was that the projects I've been thinking of doing were more warmer weather projects, and a lot of the yarn was cold weather stuff (on top of that, none of my project ideas were solid 'I'm doing X' things, which didn't help). The third is that this seems more geared towards the fashion-forward crowd, whereas I'm picky about what I like and it usually isn't popular (for example, I really didn't see any colors I like that wasn't some brand name yarn I can get elsewhere for the same price if I want it).  Also, I was hoping I'd find buttons for my baby sweater, but there were very few button sellers.  I don't think it helped that I've been in a weird mood for unrelated reasons. 

However, there were some interesting thing there.  As I said, I did see a couple of projects on display that I loved as a project, though I wasn't interested in the yarn used.  One of the vendors had a nice shrug with a stockinette body and cabled collar, with mid-length sleeves.  I fell in love with it the first time I saw it.  However, the yarn used was some weird yak/wool blend which wouldn't have worked for when I needed the shrug (I have a event in June that I was thinking of making a shrug for), the color choices didn't thrill me, and the yarn wasn't cheap either.  As far as I could tell, the pattern itself wasn't on sale.  The other projects I saw was just displays of patterns from magazines, and the last thing I need is a magazine subscription.  Something to think about, but nothing to do.  At first this bugged me, but now it doesn't.  I have food for thought, at least.

The Lecture
I scheduled myself to go to the 'Passionate Knitter Takes the Next Step' by Jo Packham, mainly because the time worked for me.  However, having played with this blog and the idea of trying to design more complicated patterns, I was thinking it may be helpful.

Now, don't get me wrong, the talk was interesting and Packham was funny and entertaining.  However, the talk was geared more towards those really trying to break into the industry as writers and entrepreneurs, and so a lot of the advice wasn't useful to me.  I was thinking I would get more advice on blogging, designing, and other quirks in the knitting world as a means to itself, not as a tool to market a brand so one can freelance as a creative person. I blog, design, and otherwise knit because I enjoy it and want to share, not because I'm looking to make it my job or use it to break into another job.  Hell, I think there's one person who actually knows who I am, who also knows I blog about this stuff.  I know there's very few people who know how much I truly lurk in the knitting world (and I mainly lurk.  That's what needs to change first, I think).  I guess if the lecture did anything, it showed me that I'm a lot more out of the knitting world than I was thinking, and that's ok with me.

Fashion Shows and the Panel
I found the fashion shows by accident; I just happen to be walking by when one was going on, and decided to watch.  I didn't think I'd be interested, but it ended up being one of the better things about this event.  I say that despite the fact that I am horrified at the trends coming up in the knitting world.  Maybe that's why I did enjoy it.  Because I'm horrified.

I first caught part of the Trendsetter fashion show.  I've never heard of them before this event, and their line of yarns seem to consist of, what's it called, specialty yarns?  Ribbon yarns, sparkly yarns, bobble yarns, all sorts of demented not-yarn yarns.  I was under the impression that specialty yarns were what they tried to spring on new knitters (I know that my learn-to-knit book had more than enough projects made out of Fun Fur.  Why certain people think fun fur and the like is appropriate for beginners is beyond me).  That they're the yarns big box stores sell to one in a blue moon hobby knitters.  But here they all, bobbles, sparkles, and all that jazz, in projects that models are wearing down the runway at a major knitting event.  I don't think I need to tell you that I've never liked such yarns or styles.  I wasn't happy that they seem to be picking up again, despite the fact that I shouldn't be surprised.  After all, when did those ugly fir vests, boots, and hats start selling in department stores? Last year?

Anyway, I decided to stick around and watch the next show (despite the fact that, at this point, I was tired and hungry).  This show was for Skacel, which is another company I've never heard of.  The good thing is that they didn't overdo the specialty yarns.  The bad thing is it seems like the next knitting trend is modular knitting, at least according to this company.  I'm not a huge fan of the 'bunch of squares put together' look outside of some afghans; it was one of the reasons I've gotten into knitting over crochet for such things.  They didn't change my opinion.  Another trend they used was weird garment shaping.  Now, I'm not automatically against unique shaping, but not like this.  These garments had bat wings, sweaters that looked like bags with cuffs, weird cowls attached to the garment, that kind of thing.  Yes, I like knitting rectangles too, but I rather deal with garment shaping than wear a rectangle.  Again, some of the stuff here was just reflecting store trends that I hate.  Oye.  However, there were a couple of things I didn't mind, and I have to say that swing dress is pretty neat, though I'd probably never wear such a thing if I knit it.

After this show I left to get food and go home.  That would have been the end of my Vogue Knitting Live trip, except I guess I enjoyed see all the bad fashions more than I thought, as I found myself looking at the Sunday schedule and going: 'Oh, I could go see the Vogue Knitting show at 2.'  So, I came back on Sunday in the afternoon to see the what Vogue Knitting was offering.

I have to say, while there was maybe one thing I would actually want to really wear (maybe two, if I modified the second a bit), they were a lot saner than the other shows.  There were several garments I was going: 'Oh, that looks really interesting, I wouldn't mind knitting something like that.' or even 'Hm, I wouldn't do that but that's an interesting idea.'  Of course, there were a couple of things where I went 'What the hell?', mainly a long, weirdly shaped cardigan with a long twisted attached cowl in the front (at least the other garments with cowls in this collection were not attached).  Also, cowls in the summer?  Summer ponchos?  I don't get these trends.

After this was a panel on knitting as a career, which was the second reason I went back on Sunday.  As I thought, it was interesting and amusing to hear the stories of people, some whom I've read their blogs, or just names we all have heard around the knitting world, tell their stories on how they ended up doing it for a living. 

Purchases
Despite wondering around the marketplace for hours on Saturday because nothing really caught my eye, I did end up buying some yarn (of course):

This will be for a baby sweater for that baby I've been making the other things for (which, I should mention, one good thing about this event was all the knitting time I had during and between shows and events.  I got the baby hat done. Also, being surrounded by people knitting during shows was great).  I picked this yarn because it's 1) cotton and 2) wasn't in the classical pastel blue/pink colors and 3) I've never seen a colorway like that red/orange one, and I thought it'll be interesting, especially since I still don't know the baby's gender, and while I'd have no issue putting pink or flair-y things on a boy or blue on a girl, my relatives would.  So, I thought the red/orange combo would be gender neutral enough, in a short-sleeve cardigan with stripes (or maybe with sleeves, not sure yet).

When I went back on Sunday, I had plans to not buy anything else.  Not only did that not work, I also manage to make an ass out of myself.  Here's what happened:

1) As I was walking around the marketplace right before it was set to close, I passed the Knitty City booth. At the Knitty City booth were two knitwear designers with books out, both which I've heard of but never owned their books.  One happens to be a known designer who I: 1) have favorited patterns on Raverly for but never got around to making, 2) have read their blog since they were featured in Brave New Knits, and 3) just released a book I was just looking at on Amazon as something I may be interested in. 
2) I go up to the known designer's table and say 'oh, I was just looking at this book on Amazon', hereby throwing all proper social introductions out the window.  I pick up the book and start looking through it.
3) After some niceties about the book with a Knitty City staffer, I get told that the author of said book is sitting at the table (which I knew).  I go 'Oh, yes, *mumble, mumble, looking at book not people*, I know, I hang around the Internet.'  At this point I then realize that I: 1) failed to maintain proper social etiquette from the get go, 2) didn't make much sense to anyone else but myself, and 3) now sound like some deranged stalker.  Author has smiled at me, but not said anything but hello.  Unsure what to do, I just keep looking at book.
4) Knowing that there was no graceful way out now, I ask how much book is.  Another mistake.  Knitty City employee flips over book and reads price off of back (duh).
5) I ask to buy book, hand book I'm holding to author.  I still haven't bother explaining myself about the internet comment, or saying anything like 'Oh, I've read your blog' or anything to that nature because I'm afraid of sounding more like a crazy idiot.
6) At this point, another person reads my name tag and asks about where I live.  I tell her that I just moved.  Turns out, she lives in the same 'hood and informs me that there are a lot of knitters there and they meet up.  I mention that I 'didn't know that because I didn't find it on the Internet' (why did I say that?), and I live on the other side of the 'hood from the place she was pointing out they meet.  She did at least tell me a Raverly group for knitters in the area. I make mental note to check it out.
7) Author hands book back.  I say thank you at least two times.  Author thanks me.  I look around and bow away from table to pay for book.

So, the end result is that I bought something completely unplanned, and there's a well known designer who may think I'm a complete idiot. Oye.  But, hey, I have a signed knitting book, and the note is very nice despite my, um, behavor.  And there are a couple of patterns in there I would love to do once I get the time and money.


Conclusion
I had fun, believe it or not.  Even it was the 'hey, let's see what absurd thing we can see today' kind of fun.  It also made me think about what I'm doing as a knitter, and where I want to go with my hobby.  That's something I'm still thinking about, though it did lead me to do yesterday's post.  Because, honestly, I know I'm talking to myself right now.  I don't really participate in the knitting world.  I just lurk, and think that's enough.  What this event let me see is that it's not enough.  Even if I sound like an idiot at first, I need to participate more, talk more, share more.  Because, after all, one of the things that attracted me was that there is a 'knitting community'.  That's impressive in its own right.  And I don't have to make it my job to participate, though I have to keep in mind that I am a budding intermediate knitter/crocheter and not a designer, despite the fact that I have two designs on this blog.  They're basic; I haven't done anything yet.  However, the other fact is that I can learn to be a hobby designer, but I can't rush the process or do it alone.  My goal, therefore, is to get to a point where I do have some better designs, and to not get frustrated when my fantastical ideas that I have right now don't work at first.  To sit down and do, instead of dream, and to do for the knitting community.

Also, I hope that for next year, I can afford a class or two.  Because I think one of the better things about this event is the classes, and honestly, they would have helped me a lot more.  But that is life.

Oh, and I do have pictures from the event, but they're on my phone, and I'm not sure if I'm allowed to share them, as most of them are of one of the shows.  Sorry.

I Know, I Know...

I actually had a whole post planned revolving my completion of the Bucket and Brims hat remake, since I realized that it would be a perfect segway into my one major mistake when I was learning to knit, but then life got in the way.  I'll still get around to that post, but it's not going to happen any time soon.  Sorry about that.

Quick updates: I did get all the hats I needed to done for the holidays, and the recipients liked them, so that's a good thing.  I'm currently finishing up my first baby sweater for this other baby on the bus right now (sorry, don't have a picture).  I should be done tomorrow (minus the buttons...which will have to wait because I have a ban on myself from buying any craft stuff right now).  I did change the sleeve length to short sleeves since this is supposed to be a late spring baby in an area of the country that gets pretty hot. 

Then I'll have nothing to do on the bus for the rest of the week.  Then I won't need it.  That's all I'm going to say for now.  I'll try to get back to really posting when my life settles down. 

A belated happy holidays to everyone, and have a happy new year.

The Milk Maiden Write-and-Dash

Since I can't seem to actually sit down and write something when I have time on the weekends, here's the promised notes from my experience with making the Milk Maiden pullover, plus some other observations.

The Sweater
Well, it was an interesting knit.  It came out nicely, but I ended up winging a lot of little changes, despite the fact that I actually took the time to sit down and plan out how I was going to shorten this sweater.  This is because it has an odd construction in the sleeve area and is shaped.  I don't have much of an issue with shaping.  I was worried about screwing up the sleeve construction, having never done something like it before (it involves doing half the sleeve, and then attaching the sleeve to the sweater by decreases, which creates the sleeve cap.  It also means that the sleeve width is the height of the sleeve, something I figured out a tad too late).  However, I did manage to get the sleeves on mostly right.  Yay me.

Oh, and while I was stupid and didn't write every change I made down, I did get a good chunk of them onto my Raverly for this project (the details may be a little lacking, but heh).  But since I'm being lazy, I'm not linking.  My profile link's on the side bar if you're really interested.

The Yarn Used
Madelinetosh yarn....oh, I love your colors, I love the way the color looks in this sweater, but you bleed, and bleed, and bleed!  I set you in vinegar three times, I put so much into the water that it had to be half vinegar, but every time I took you out of the vinegar, you still bled!  How do I set your pretty colors?  How?  Three times I've had to block projects made out of you, and all three times I couldn't stop the yarn from bleeding. Oye.

Other Observations
1) I actually saw someone knitting on the subway a week or so ago.  I've never actually seen someone else knit in public, and here was this woman sitting on the crowded subway, merrily knitting away.  I tried taking a sneaky picture (yeah, I know, it's a little creepy), but the camera in my phone sucks and the subway was too crowded.  (I should note that I don't knit on the subway since I have a very short ride on it).

2) I then finished a hat (it is a present) and a short scarf (probably will be a present) with the alpaca from Rhinebeck.  I now have another hat to do (another present), maybe another project that will also be a present, and a bunch of baby stuff since I now have another relative that's expecting.  I would usually be 'yay' happy about the baby stuff, but I was kind of hoping to start on a cardigan for myself.  You know, so I stop wearing the same store-bought one to work every day.  Oh well.  It'll give me a chance to clear out some of the baby yarn in my stash, given that I'm not over-estimating my knitting abilities again (Which I am.  Can I really do two sweaters after a hat and [retracted] before buying some nicer yarn to make a nicer baby sweater?).

3) I really want to know where the phrase 'sharpen your knitting needles' came from.  My mom said it to me when announcing the baby news.  I've never heard that before, and I've never heard of being able to sharpen your needles.  Probably because I use metal ones.  A web search for another day.

Busy, Busy, Busy

This is a quick post, since I've been a bit busy this weekend, and still have things to do (like my laundry).  Was in the city Saturday for family driven plans, and then today I went to see this:

That's right.  I got up to Rhinebeck for my first ever Sheep and Wool Festival.  Which is funny, since I live, oh, a little more than an hour away (hence my last minute plans), and I have never heard of the festival in my life until I joined Raverly.  I, of course, also broke several of my rules and left with all of this:

Well, that and a crochet related item for my mom, which will be the surprise part of her Hanukkah present.

The middle two dark-blue skeins are some alpaca for a hat for my mom.  It'll be a Hanukkah present.  She requested that it be alpaca, though I have to get her to pick out a pattern for it.  The others were just 'oooh, pretty' buys, which means I have no clue what I will do with them, and they were the most expensive yarn I've bought so far.  I'm a sucker for jewel tone blue and black combos, and there were a lot of them. Not that I still have a sweater to finish, or at least get to the point where I can take it back on the bus, no suree:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I need to stop writing about this. 

Next time, I'll plan ahead and take the patterns I want to do to Rhinebeck so I can get yarn to match. 

Anyway, since I'm an idiot and forgot my camera, the sheep and alpaca pictures above are from my knitter-in-crime sister, who I got to come with me last minute, and insisted that since this was the Sheep and Wool Festival, we had to go see the sheep.  And I swear that sheep in the first picture was posing for us.

Ribbing Woes

I have realized that I suck at 1x1 ribbing. I should have noticed this when I did it at the bottom of the sweater:

I should have thought, hey, this isn't good, I need to learn to fix this.  But no, I conveniently forgot that the bust area of the Milk Maiden sweater is 1x1 ribbing as well.  And when I actually got to that part of the pattern, I forgot that my 1x1 ribbing sucks. So I began ribbing, only to find out that, yeah, having gaping stitches is not conducive to the bust area of a sweater.

So I pulled out 6 rows, and tried again.  I tried twisting the rib, but that just creates huge gaping holes in between the stitches.  I tried twisting the knit stitches only, but that leaves gaping purl stitches.  I tried loosing my tension (this seems counter-intuitive, but according to what I read, trying to pull your stitches tighter makes gaping ribbing worse), but it didn't work either.  I've pulled this part of the sweater out three times already, and I've made no progress since Tuesday (though crowded buses and the idiot that sat next to me with a huge duffel bag in his lap that took up half my seat space didn't help either).

Now I just don't know what to do, other than change it to a 2x2 rib, since I magically don't have this issue when I do any other multiple of ribbing. It'll also mean the bottom won't match, which I'm fine with.  As long as I do the sleeves the same way, I think it'll work.  But I rather do it right.  How the hell do I do 1x1 ribbing without gaping holes?

Internal Rules and Current Projects

I know I wrote last time that my next post would be on something different.  That was last week.  I'll get there at some point, I promise.

For now, however, I'll cover something that's currently on my mind, and in the meantime cover what I'm working on now (as well as a couple of past projects).  Therefore, I present the first set of my Internal Rules for Knitting.  These are some rules that help keep my knitting under control, which means they're broken half the time.  Anyway:

1) I will only buy yarn if I have a project in mind for it  After all, this is what I ended up with the first time I didn't do this:

Yeah, that's a current picture of some ugly Lion Brand Swede sitting in my stash

I told myself after that little incident that I would never buy yarn on a whim again.  I would wait until I had picked it for a specific project.  Especially if it was on sale or cost a pretty penny. This would keep my yarn spending under control, and make sure I use what I buy.

However, it also seems that it's quite valid to make an exception when I feel bad about returning yarn to my LYS because I was allergic to it and bought the substitute yarn online.  That's how I ended up with two skeins of this:

The yarn is Madelinetosh's Tosh Light in their Baltic colorway, which I am rather attracted to.  That shawl is the first skein, and came out of the fact that I bought this yarn on a whim.  This, of course, leaves the second skein just sitting there, because while I enjoyed the challenge of learning how to knit lace, I'm not touching it again any time soon. It's this pattern, no modifications. My notes on it here.

It also seems that I'll make an exception I find out some distance relative is having a kid, and I have lofty goals and loads of motivation that I'll make dozens of baby things.  That's how I ended up with all of this:

At least I got a project done for said baby, though it only took one skein of that grey yarn in the back (Bernat's Softee Baby in Gray Marl by the way, though if you can't stand acrylic, don't get it.  It works up like acrylic, though it softens up in the wash)  That sweater is a modified version of this pattern. For notes, go here.

2) I will not spend more on yarn for a project than it would cost me to buy the finished product retail.  This will make my knitting practical, and save me money.  Well, sometimes.  It turns out that an alpaca sweater can retail for $130-140 dollars, which of course is only a little higher than I spent on making this:

However, spending a year and making several projects while twisting your knit stitches is priceless. But that's another post.  This is a modified version of this pattern.  My notes here.

It was also a gift to my mom, so I really didn't care about that one so much.  Given that she's spent more than that making a crochet bedspread that I grew to not like pretty quickly, among other things.  However, it also seems that the rule goes out the window if I like the colorway, which is how I ended up with this:

Project notes are here

This is my current bus project.  The pattern is the Milk Maiden Pullover from Brave New Knits, and it's one of the only reasons I bought the book.  The yarn is Madelintosh's Tosh Sport in their (new?) colorway Fathom. I officially love this colorway. Look at it, my favorite color combination, just slightly variegated enough to be interesting. It's perfect for this pattern too. I had to get it. I don't care if I can get a sweater for $40 bucks and this cost me almost $70, it's worth it. And I'll break rule number 1 if a Madelinetosh Sock onesie pops up in this colorway. Or this colorway gets discontinued. Love, love, love.

And yes, I've modified it, since I modify almost everything.  Why I tend to modify everything is another post, though. Back to the rules.

3) I will use up most of my stash before buying more yarn. Yeah, never managed to follow this one:

Most of my stash. It's a combination of whim yarn and extra skeins from other projects. It lives under my bed and out of my mind for the most part.

The only thing that makes me feel better about that is that it seems that most people I read about online have much larger stashes.  Hey, mine (barely) fits in a Tupperware container. Then again, they seem to have much nicer yarn in their stashes too. Yay?

And now for a rule I'm actually not currently breaking:

4) I should only have one bus project and one at-home project at a time.

First, I'll define what I mean by 'bus project' and 'at-home project'. Bus projects are, obviously, projects that I can do mostly on on the bus. This means that they get worked up faster, but they tend to be simpler. Though 'simpler' is a bit relative, as I have no problem including some sweaters in this pile, as you can see from my bus project above. If it fits in my briefcase and doesn't require either being chained to the pattern or a chart or a lot of color-work, I can usually do it on the bus. Lots of stockinette or very repetitive patterns are a plus here, though I have done drop stitch lace, finishing off projects, and cables on the bus successfully. On the other hand, at home projects are usually things I want to make, but are way too big and/or complicated to work on on the bus. This officially started when I made that lace shawl above, as I realized that in order to make a lace shawl, I was going to need to be chained to the pattern and be able to finish a row in a sitting. I can't do this on the bus without really annoying my fellow passengers. I decided to spare them.

I'm now working on this:

My project notes are here

This is the pattern St. Ciaran from the new and expanded version of Aran Knitting. I'm not really mortifying it (gasp!), though I'm using Berroco's Comfort Worsted to make it instead of a wool-based yarn. This is because I'm making it for my brother, who's still a kid and still trashes things. Therefore, it had to be 1)washable and 2)not too expensive to make. I picked the pattern out, though he approved it. I like torturing myself, though I'm not finding it too hard at this point, just tedious. I should be working on it right now.

I'll go do that.