Wordless WIP Wednesday: Mobile Edition!

Whoa!

I cast on for my Kaylee's Parasol Socks in the airport early Saturday morning. Four plane flights later (two out and two back), I've got this:


I...don't think I've ever knit that fast. In total it's probably only six or seven hours of knitting, and a good bit of that time I was reading while I knit, so not going as fast as possible. Where did all of that come from?!

I didn't know how the colorway would knit up, as I'm the first to actually make something with it, so I was incredibly charmed to see that the colors are spiraling around the sock:


Why so charmed? Because that's exactly what they do in the actual parasol:

Brilliant!

Endings & Beginnings

Two years ago I started a pair of Monkey socks in my FFtC Jasper yarn. See, it was really clever, because at the time, Jackson Rathbone, the actor who plays Jasper in the Twilight films, was in a band called 100 Monkeys. Well I was only knitting 2, so I called the project 100 (-98) Monkeys and was quite chuffed. But then they pooled, terribly:





Yeah, that's the same sock. You almost can't even tell, looking at the different sides. I knew I'd never be happy with them, and that I ought to frog them, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Until today, when I wound the yarn for another Perfectly Cleverly Named Project, Kaylee's Parasol Socks, and needed the needles:



Get it? The yarn is Kaylee's Parasol, from Firefly, in Schmutzerella's Comfy (MCN) base, and the pattern is called Parasol Socks, with wee lace umbrellas on the leg. I'll cast on tomorrow (well, later today)--so excited!

Here's a better picture of the yarn, from back when I got it and wasn't in a hurry to get pictures before the sun set:


(I still haven't technically frogged the Monkeys, because tonight has been super busy--which is why this is technically posting on Saturday morning, not Friday night--and so I decided it wasn't a good use of my time. I'll get to them...eventually...)

FO: Alice's Charade

Another FO to share! (Yay for Daylight Savings Time and evening sun!)


Pattern: Charade by Sandra Park (Free on Rav)
Yarn: Fresh From the Cauldron's Alice Cullen
Ravelry Project Page

I love these socks, even though they took nearly a year(!) to finish. My first socks on Magic Loop. I like the technique on larger size needles, and it's okay for socks, but I think I still prefer DPNs. It's good to have at least one sock-size needle that's long enough for ML, though. It is much easier to do Judy's Magic Cast-On on ML than DPNs. (Trust me, I've tried both ways!)



I added two extra pattern repeats to these socks (for a total of 72 sts cast on) because my last Charade socks, knit exactly to the pattern, were a wee bit too small. They fit, but they are tight. These are much better, although I have the same problem I often have with socks, which is that if they are big enough to fit over my tall heels, they are too wide around my skinny chicken ankles. This pattern isn't stretchy enough to be snug around the ankles, so there is some bunching, but it's not too bad.



I knew that Alice (the fashion diva of the Cullen Clan, for those who aren't Twilight fans) required a bit of a fancy pattern, both based on the character and the colorway, but simultaneously one that wouldn't overwhelm the colors of the yarn. I think this was perfect for her!

I tried to pay homage to one of my favorite knit bloggers, Threadpanda, with a few pictures of these socks being modeled with black heels. Panda did it with her Alice socks (same yarn, different pattern), and they look splendid:


(photo by Threadpanda, used with permission)

I own a ridiculous amount of black heels, so I was sure I could make it work with at least one pair. Turns out no. One pair was kind of okay, but I couldn't get a good pic. I have a knitting friend coming to visit in a few weeks though, and maybe between the two of us we can make something work!

Random Monday

(Channeling the Yarn Harlot, naturally.)

1) I resumed working on a pair of socks that I hadn't touched in approximately a year. They are coming along nicely.

I really want to be good at toe-up, so I can stop wasting sock yarn. My biggest concern (besides the outrageously frustrating cast-on) is the heel, because I have odd-shaped heels, and I want to be sure it fits. I'm doing the Gusset Heel from Wendy's Toe-Up Sock book (instead of the short-row heel called for by the pattern), so hopefully it will work!

2) I've decided to frog the socks that were pooling. I'll try to remember to take an updated picture before I frog. It's gotten pretty ick looking.

3) After I decided to frog those, I started another pair of socks so I could still enter the FFtC Summer KAL.

I did not finish in time. (Because I was busy knitting baby blankets, mostly.) I've now finished the first of these socks, and started the second. Maybe I'll finish by the time it actually gets cold here?

4) Now there is a new FFtC KAL, of baby blankets for Project Linus. I've started one. I will almost certainly...wait for it...not finish in time, because I will be finishing up the socks from the last KAL, and working on a baby blanket for my cousin, who is due in December.

5) One day I will learn to avoid KALs.

6) I think this is the fastest blog post I've ever written. I like this!

Quick Dip in the Pool

Okay not really, but I thought that was a very summery title. Let's talk about yarn pooling.

I've been distracted by a lot of baby knitting lately, but I have made a bit of progress on my FFtC KAL socks:





I'm not sure how I feel about the way the colors are pooling. It's almost like they are spiraling around the sock, yeah? It's especially noticeable where the blues stack up.

Looking around Rav (Thank goodness for Rav! What did we do in the pre-Rav days?!), it seems like that's happened with other Squib yarns (e.g. here) and sort of in this version of Jasper Monkeys, but not to the the same degree. That looks more like stripes than spirals, although that could be just because of the way the sock is set up in the photo.

I'm not sure what to do. I think I'll knit another pattern repeat to see if it continues. I could pick a different pattern, or I could try a different needle size. I'm not wild about either idea. Or I could just knit 'em up as is, 'cause spiraling is kind of cool. Thoughts?

Another KAL!

Remember back in January I started that dishcloth KAL? It didn't go so well. I finished the dishcloth eventually, but it wasn't 'til May when I finally sat down and cranked out the end of the cloth, mostly just to get it off my WIP list. It's a cute snowman pattern, but it's a big cloth, and I don't really have any use for it. Needless to say, I didn't do any of the following months' KALs. (I knew going into it how big the cloth was going to be...I just...thought I'd come up with a use for it? Idk.)

But now I've started one that I'm really excited about! As part of the Fresh From the Cauldron group on Ravelry, I'm doing the FFtC Summer KAL (fftcsummerkal). You can pick any pattern you want, you just have to use FFtC yarn. Not a problem! For every FO completed over the course of the summer, you get an entry into a drawing to win yarn, stitch markers, and other goodies!

I cast on for my (first) project yesterday, a pair of Cookie A's Monkey socks:

This is my very first Cookie A pattern, yay! (They were partly inspired by Threadpanda's Crawl Straight Home Socks, which turned out fabulous.)


Yarny details, as always, on the Rav project page. Hopefully these won't take too long...I really want to win some of that prize yarn, so I'd like to have a few entries. ;)

Socks & Scarves

That's pretty much what I'm knitting these days! If you check out my Rav progress bars, you'll see that all of my currently-listed WIPs are either socks or scarves. Socks are perfect for the bus, and scarves are good for TV and movies. I've actually got a pair of wristers going that I haven't added in to Rav yet, but those are, so far, no different than socks. Instead of turning a heel and making a foot, I'll leave the end open and make a thumb!

Most recent pair of socks that I finished:



Oak Ribbed Socks



What's neat is how the stripe patterns line up:



It was two separate balls of yarn, and apparently they were either wound in opposite directions, or I started with a different end each time -- too funny!

Also, these are the socks during which I figured out my personal cure for SSS. I almost finished the first sock on one of my trips this summer, but I didn't want to graft it shut while I was away. That would be a recipe for disaster! I still didn't want to graft it after I got home, so I started on the second sock, and it went so quickly. It took significantly less time to knit than the first, and much less time than a second sock usually takes me. So I think my new plan is to never finish the first sock in the pair...we'll see if this works!

Traveling

It's bad for my free time, but good for my knitting! I spent last week in AZ at an astronomy conference. I didn't have any good, small projects to bring that were at a "low brainpower" level, so I got to cast on for something new - yay! I wanted to do it before I left, but time wasn't on my side, so I did it as we were taxiing down the runway and taking off:




A better look:



It's a simple 2x2 rib sock, made with absolutely scrumptious sock yarn from Knitivity, which I purchased at Knitting Asylum. The colorway is Carina, and it's inspired by the Carina Nebula, which is one of the most stunning deep sky objects, in my opinion.


Click here to embiggen. Image credit: NASA, ESA, N. Smith (U. California, Berkeley) et al., and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

I didn't do too much knitting during the actual conference, but four plane rides and a long bus trip up to Kitt Peak Observatory add up, and I touched down back in LA with half a sock!



I know that pace is really slow for some people, but it's pretty good for me, so I'm happy! =)

I've got a ton of backlogged FOs...I'm hoping to get 'em into Ravelry today, and maybe even blog about them soon! ;)

Photoshoot, Part I: S

Since I don't have any pictures of my recent FOs, let me show off my friends and their excellent knitting. First up, S, a fellow grad student. You saw her hat from the front (sort of) in the last post, but it's super-cute from the side and back, too.




I just love how the decreases look in the back, and I'm jealous of S's perfect hair for hats like this!

She also had a lovely pair of socks:

One thing I think is really neat about these socks is how the stripes match perfectly in the front:

but not in the back:


Too funny. =)

I apologize in advance...

...because I am about to sound like a huge snob. Why? Because I totally cleaned up knitting-wise for Christmas! Family has learned that buying me yarn is not a great idea because I'm picky, but they feed the knitting addiction in other ways. Let me demonstrate.


The greatest sock blockers ever. I've been wanting some sock blockers for a long time just 'cause they are nifty, and found these shooting star ones sold by an eBay seller used by a lady I knit with. Love at first sight! And what's peeking out from the bottom of the picture? Oh that's right, I finally have FO pictures of my Pacific Sunrise Socks. They've been done for weeks (months?) but I never got around to taking pictures. Now, they are officially photographed!



This is the last FO from 2008 (dude, I swear it was just 2007, and now it's 2009?) and so I'm hoping to do a collage of all my projects from last year. Thank you Ravelry for making that possible!



I love what the colors of Dez's yarn do, especially on the foot.




What else did I get for Christmas? Knit Picks Options Needles!!!



I've wanted a set of these for a long time now, and finally asked for (and got!) them - hooray! Unfortunately, the zipper on the case has already broken, but I'm going to email them tomorrow and see if I can get a replacement - it should last longer than a few weeks! On those needles is the beginning of a new scarf (swoon...I love scarfs...)


It's a replica of the scarf Rosalie Hale/Cullen wears in the first cafeteria scene of the Twilight movie. (Ravel it. * See the original.) The story is set in cold, rainy Forks, WA, so there is knitwear galore in the movie, and some really talented knitters and crocheters have been reverse engineering the knits and sharing their patterns, and for that I'm grateful, because it means I don't have to do it. (Although, if I can get a good picture of the blue scarf Alice wears in the field trip scene, I'm all over that. If you've seen one, please let me know!) I've been wanting a neutral-colored scarf for a while now ("How long have you been seventeen?" "A while.") and this one came along. Excellent. I think I'll be able to get the yarn for Bella's Mittens soon (tomorrow, hopefully!) so I can make those, too. Double excellent.

And with that, I think I'm out. It's bedtime! I hope you got some wonderful knitting stuff over the holidays as well. =)

Oh Hai!

So is everyone having a lovely holiday season? Good! I am - Santa was generous, I get a few weeks off* to hang with the family, and get some knitting done! Woo! I've been better about updating my Rav than my Xanga; in fact, I've been on Ravelry a whole, whole lot lately. Partly because of the free time, partly because of my latest obsession: the Twilight Saga! Even though I'm about ten years older than the target audience, I saw the movie on a whim with some friends and was instantly hooked! I got the books asap and locked myself away to enter the sparkleverse. If you haven't heard of Twilight, it's basically a series of four books (there may be a fifth someday) about vampires and werewolves and teen angst. Here's one of my fave descriptions:

Emo teenage girl moves to new town, meets mysterious boy, realizes he's a sparkling vampire; Greatest Love of All Time Omg ensues. In later books, a love triangle forms with the addition of a werewolf. Babies are of tantamount importance; going to college is not. Some readers rank the series up there with Pride and Prejudice and the works of Shakespeare; some readers... beg to differ. Severely.

Love it. Neither the books nor the movie are great literature/cinema, but they are fun and engaging, and the books are full of suspense, leading to some seriously late nights of "just one more chapter" until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. So anyways, point of the story is that there are a lot of great knitted and crocheted pieces in the movie, and as soon as I can get the yarn, I will be making Bella's Mittens (Rav Link) and the Rosalie Hale Scarf (Rav Link). Yay!

Some other stuff I've been working on:



One BBR Sock is done! Hoping to cast on for the second sock within the next few days...I just need to sit down and do it.




The first of the Oak Ribbed Socks is coming along well. Heel is turned (woo!), working on the gusset decreases.




I made a Bainbridge Scarf in Mmmmalabrigo Silky Merino for the Boston trip. It is utterly delightful. So soft, and my very favorite color!




A Sinful Ribbed Scarf in Dez's amazing hand-spun, hand-dyed wool.

I'm on the home stretch of my Clapotis, and am really hoping to finish it for New Year's Eve. Since it's purple, I can wear it as I root for my Tigers in the Peach Bowl! =)

On that note, I'm going to call it a night. Hope y'all have had a great weekend, and Happy Early New Year! =)



*And by "off" I mean I still have to work on research and some homework assignments from my advisor, but all of them can be done in my PJs at home, yay!