a total hodge-podge

Oh my goodness, I haven’t posted here in over a month! I’ve just been so, so busy with the teaching and the tutoring and the research and the illness and whatnot that what little free time I usually have completely evaporated in November. I spent literally every single day of Thanksgiving break writing lectures, coding data, and preparing conference abstracts. I did take a brief break to make some delicious food for Thanksgiving, using the same menu of recipes that we used last year (and wearing my very seasonally-appropriate maple-leaf cardigan):

So, there’s not really much of anything to report on the knitting front. The only “progress” I made has been ripped out…I cast on for a vest in the first week of November, following along with everyone else in celebrating “Vestvember”. I’d planned to make a vest version of Stripes!, using my leftover Noro and a skein of Cascade Eco wool:

Alas, I ended up knitting almost the entire thing, only to abandon it, with plans to rip. Why? Well, for one, I decided to take several people’s advice and go with zero ease. And I’m realizing that I just don’t DO zero ease. I like a little breathing room! The other issue is that a gauge of 4 sts/inch, at least on someone as petite as I am, is really pretty darn chunky for a vest. So, my one project for November has been set aside, although I do have plans to take my adapt my original idea into something I’d like a lot better, using the sock-weight version of Noro for a vest with better drape. Wait and see!

Oh, and speaking of Stripes!, I wore it in one of my 365 self-portrait shots early last week:

Wearing Stripes! is not news, in itself, since I wear that sweater ALL THE TIME, but that photo spurred a discussion about a hypothetical Knitting Olympics (which you can read, if you click on that photo). Having become pretty much oblivious to everything that’s happened since I started reading for comps (I’m not really exaggerating much on that one), I hadn’t even realized the Olympics were coming up at all! But they are. So, if you inclined towards the combination of Olympics and Knitting, it’s time to start thinking! Just a PSA for y’all.

One last thing that actually IS news, is that we’ve adopted a third cat! We just picked her up yesterday. Her name is Nina, and she’s 1.5 years old, but very very tiny. We saw her several weeks ago in the adoption center at Petco, and couldn’t get her out of our heads. Here she is:

I have no idea when I’ll be able to post next. I give my last lecture tomorrow, but then there’s review sessions and exam grading and whatnot keeping me pretty busy right through to the end of the semester. To anyone who has been patiently waiting for me to write up patterns for a few of the things I’ve been promising to write up patterns for, my deepest apologies…I promise I will start tackling those once I get a little time after the semester is over. I hope December is treating everybody well so far!

 

still here

Just dropping by the blog to say hello. I’ve been knitting (specifically, on the purple gansey, which is inching ever closer to completion), and thinking through some designs as well, but am also very busy, and have been (unsuccessfully) fighting against exhaustion, achiness, and congestion that I just can’t kick. It’s been a dreary week here (although today, which is when I took that picture you see above, has been glorious), so I don’t have much in the way of photographic evidence of said knitting endeavors. C’est la vie.

So, it’s October now, and that means Socktoberfest, among other things. It’s funny how socks have just completely fallen off my radar lately. I just can’t get my mind off sweaters. Designing them, and knitting them. I’ve got ideas for a few non-sweaters in my head, too (including a sock!), but it’ll be awhile before I can find the time and energy to write and knit them up. I do have one sock on the needles right now: my “tutoring sock”, for those times when my students decide not to show up for their appointments and I have to kill time in the tutoring office. We’ll see if I finish it up before the month is out…I actually hope I don’t, because I enjoy tutoring, and like it when my students show up!

October also means Rhinebeck. I’m so excited about going there this year, but also nervous. I just don’t always handle big crowds very well, and if I’m still feeling under the weather, it could be pretty tough. But I’m really eager to meet so many of you in person, and I’ll be honest, I’m eager to show off my Rhinebeck cardigan, too. I wore it three times last week, that’s how much I love it.

 

a beautiful evening.

It’s the 4th of July. The first day of the Tour de France. But my gansey yarn and needles are at home, and while I did cheat slightly, and cast on before I left, I didn’t take any pictures of that process. So, coverage of le Tour de Gansey, part trois will have to wait until later, once I’m home. I’ll be sure to catch y’all up, no worries. But for now, I just want to share a photo of the beautiful evening we’re having here in Winona. So that’s that.

 

the quilt.

I’ve mentioned here a few times that I was knitting Chawne’s sweater in exchange for a quilt. I figure her gorgeous quilt deserves a little bit of attention here on my blog, now that it’s here.

It came on Friday, and despite temperatures of 88 degrees, I couldn’t resist taking it outside to get some photos. When you get a quilt this awesome, you forget about things like the heat:

(I promise, I am actually wearing shorts in that picture, under the quilt. I just have absurdly long legs to go with my absurdly long arms.) One of the blues in the quilt (there are 15 different shades of blue!) matches my glasses perfectly:

I absolutely adore the quilt, and am so glad that C and I were able to do such a wonderful swap. The quilt is already well-loved by both the human and feline residents of this household:

Stimpy thinks it is his

But I make him share

Thanks so much, C!

 

it’s (almost) gansey time!

I’ve got another swatch for y’all. This time, for something that is not striped:

What you see there is Schoeller Stahl Morea, a sport-weight yarn, on size 3 needles, which gives me a gauge of 7 sts./inch. This is the yarn I’m planning to use to knit my modernized version of a gansey, with waist-shaping and set-in short sleeves, during this year’s Tour de France. Because what says “French cycling race” better than a traditional British fisherman’s garment? Nothing, that’s what I say! You can see the beginnings of my (not very good) sketching underneath the swatch. I’m still thinking through exactly which designs I want in my gansey, but I’m quite eager to get started. I’ll do my best to hold off until July 4th to actually cast on, but I’m not sure I can manage the wait. I’m looking forward to le Tour de Gansey, part trois!

Speaking of ganseys, thanks to a tip from Sarah, I now have a beautiful colorcard to play with:

It’s from here. They are revitalizing gansey yarns with a whole bunch of gorgeous colors, and I am now seriously tempted to order a cone or two, now that I’ve gotten to see it first-hand. I’m envisioning not just ganseys, but also colorwork yokes (of course!). We’ll just see.

 

just wondering.

Because I know we all like pictures.

Because these are the sorts of things I wonder about, when I have a splitting sinus headache and feel like someone is driving an icepick under my right eye:

What’s a good DK-weight wool yarn? Is there a DK-weight yarn that’s sort of the “Cascade 220″ of DK yarns? You know, basic, sturdy, good color range, all that? I ask because I realized the other day that I have almost no DK-weight yarn in my stash (I’ve got lots of worsted, and a fair amount of sport-weight, pretty much), and I couldn’t think of what a good basic DK yarn would be. (Not that I need to add to my stash or anything). I’ve knit with Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, and love it, but it’s not really what I’d call sturdy. And I know there are the various Rowan DK-weight yarns, but they’re not exactly in my budget, unless they’re on clearance. Am I missing something obvious?

 

Post-FO

I’ve been knitting sweaters left and right recently, as you all know. You get to see them while I’m knitting them, and then in a triumphant FO post, and then…nothing. So, inspired by a recent post at Eleven Stitches, I thought I’d share with y’all some updates on the various sweaters I’ve knit, and how they’ve fared in my wardrobe.

Let’s start with the ones I wear all the time. If you follow my 365 Project over on Flickr, you’ve seen these pop up time and time again.

First up, Rogue:

I wear Rogue a lot, especially when it gets cold and wet, because I love having the basically waterproof hood to pull over my head in such weather. I adore the sweater; it was my first “real” sweater, and the yarn (Bartlett Yarn, in “Lovat”) is amazing, both in color and feel. The sweater is not without problems, though…I knit it before I had a good sense of how much longer than “normal” my arms were, and as such, the sleeves are at least an inch too short. I’d add a little bit of length in the body (maybe an extra cable repeat), too, if I were to knit it again. And I just might, because I really do love it.

Next up, Cobblestone One:

This sweater is fabulous; it’s basically a fancified version of a sweatshirt. The yarn (Handpaintedyarn.com’s Worsted Merino, which is essentially Malabrigo) pills like crazy, which is a bit of a problem, but nothing compares to how soft and comfortable this sweater is to wear. I loved it so much, I knit a second version of it, which gets worn even more.

And now, Bohus Yoke:

I wear this sweater at least once a week. I’m still absurdly proud of having designed and knit the whole thing myself. I should have used a stretchier bind-off, because it’s a little tough to pull over my head, but once it’s on, the fit is pretty much perfect. Not surprising, since I made it to fit my exact measurements! The yarn (Paton’s Classic Merino) has held up beautifully; a little bit of pilling, but nothing crazy. I love the knit-in hems with contrast facings. I get lots and lots of compliments on this one when I wear it.

Next, Cobblestone Two:

(I’m trying to illustrate “300″ in that photo, in case you were wondering). I made this using the modified version of the Cobblestone pattern that I created while I was making my first one. I love the yarn here…it’s BFL (the aran weight, from Fleece Artist), so it feels amazing, and it’s a tiny bit bulkier than the merino I used in the first Cobblestone, which makes this sweater a tiny bit baggier. I don’t mind this a bit…it’s my current favorite (well, before it got warm) for throwing on over a t-shirt or thermal shirt on a chilly day.

And last but not least on the “sweaters I wear all the time” list, my most recent knit, Stripes!:

Y’all know how much I love this sweater. I’m still working on writing up the pattern (where by working, I mean, “not actually working on it but feeling rather guilty that I’m not, and hoping I can get it done by June”). This sweater is perfect. I used a slightly different decrease pattern than is given in the EZ books, and it fits my shoulders perfectly. I slaved over that neckline finishing, but it was so worth it…the neckline is so incredibly comfortable, and easily stretches over my head. The waist shaping is super flattering. The yarns work so well together, with the Noro adding great color, and the Eco Wool adding a nice almost-felted feel, post-blocking. The only thing I would change (and I am changing this, in the pattern I’m writing), is to start the corrugated ribbing on the bottom hem with larger needles. Right now it pulls in a bit at the bottom, which I don’t care for.

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Ok, now for the sweaters that I love, but simply don’t wear very often. With both of these sweaters, the problem has nothing to do with the actual knit (they both turned out great), but with the style.

First up, Demi:

I do love this sweater, very much. I feel incredibly pretty when I wear it. The problem is just that it’s so nice, I can’t bring myself to wear it very often. I feel too “dressed up”, and I worry that I’ll spill something on the pretty cream colored yarn (Lion Brand Fisherman). I do wear it sometimes when I dress up in the wintertime, and it’s very comfortable, but I’m just more of a plain and practical sort of girl, when it comes to sweaters.

Next up, Syncopated Ribs:

I’m quite happy with how this one turned out, especially after my neckline mods, but I just don’t wear it. I think it’s just not really my style; I like the kind of sweater you throw on over a t-shirt, and this just isn’t quite that. Lesson learned: even if the design is clever and looks great on the model, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good knit for me.

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And now, for the sweaters that don’t get worn for other reasons. My “problem sweaters”, if you will.

First up, Sienna Cardigan:

The only problem with this one is that I got a bit overenthusiastic in my attempts to make it a tiny bit smaller than the smallest size in the pattern, and wound up with a sweater that’s too snug in the shoulders. Something I should keep in mind for myself is that while I do not have a 36″ bust, my shoulder width is probably not that far off from a lot of women who do, because the only difference between me and them is, uh, what sticks out in front. Anyway, I do like this sweater, and can wear it over a sleeveless top, if I leave it unbuttoned, and I do that occasionally, but not very often.

Next up, my Gansey:

I’m so proud of having designed and knit this one, but again, I don’t wear it. It’s a combination of style (it’s not the most flattering garment for me…I’m already broad shouldered for my size, and the drop shoulders with no waist-shaping don’t help that at all!) and having made the neckline too wide, so the whole thing sits funny at the top. I could probably fix the neckline, if I had the patience for it, and I very well might.

And finally, my Garter Yoke Cardi:

This was pure operator error. I’m not sure how clear it is in that photo, but I simply used the wrong percentages when calculating my increases for the top-down yoke (I’ve since corrected them, in the post I made about it on the Yoked Sweater blog). The yoke is much too long and steep for me, and it’s obvious that there’s a fit problem whether I wear it buttoned or not. All I need to do is pick up the stitches after the last increase, rip out the top, and reknit up to the neck using the right decreases, I just haven’t found the motivation to do so. Maybe if some of you bug me about it, I will :)

Well, that does it for my Post-FO post, at least as far as the sweaters are concerned. Expect to see a new sweater added to the mix soon…I finished the sleeve caps on The Swatch last night, and just need to put in the v-neck finishing.

 

something blue.

Before I get to the knitting, I just want to make note of the fact that Friday was our fourth wedding anniversary, in addition to being the Equinox, and our cats’ birthday (the coincidence of those three events is not an accident!). What a four years it has been, full of changes both good and bad, for ourselves and for our country. We had a lovely dinner together that night, and plan, as our gift to ourselves, to make this the year we really fix up our garden (the traditional gift for the fourth wedding anniversary is “flowers”, after all!). Having been married on the Equinox, we celebrate our marriage at every turn of the seasons (the more celebrating, the better, right?), and I’m hoping that by the time the Solstice rolls around, we’ll have our garden looking much better. 16 seasons together…here’s to many, many more, my love.

And now to the knitting! Despite a nasty sweater-reorganization injury yesterday, I did manage to cast-on for something new:

It’s the beginning of a Tangled Yoke Cardigan. I’d been debating what to cast on for next, and just couldn’t make up my mind. On Thursday, I saw one of my students wearing a Tangled Yoke to class, and I had to resist the urge to squeal and embarrass her in front of a class of 100+ students! But my mind was made up: a Tangled Yoke would be the next sweater on my needles. I actually injured my finger trying to find the yarn I’d set aside for it awhile ago! I am loving the way the Silky Wool feels so far, and am also loving the garter rib. Which is a good thing, considering that I’m going to be doing lots of garter rib on the sweater I’m designing for my swap with Chawne!

 

can’t come to the blog

Too much grading to do this weekend. See you on the other side!

 

Stash Sale/Fundraiser

Over the years, I’ve managed to accumulate a fairly large stash. I’ve picked up yarn at closeout sales, or from friends who decided they just weren’t that into knitting (I know, I know!), or as gifts, and so on, and the longer it sits around, the more I’m realizing that there just isn’t any way I’m going to ever knit with some of it. Part of it is that I have a fair amount of cotton and other less bouncy yarns. While I don’t seem to have any trouble knitting with wool and other bouncy stuff, knitting with things like cotton, at this point, makes my joints ache like you would not believe, thanks to my connective tissue problems.

In any case, I thought that I might be able to use my excess stash to help me raise a bit of money for a good cause. You might have noticed a new little donation link go up in my sidebar a week ago, to a Heifer International donation page. If you’re not familiar with their work, I highly recommend checking them out. I remember many Christmases ago, getting a card from my dad’s parents, saying that they had donated a goat through Heifer International in my name. I was really impressed by Heifer’s approach to helping fight poverty and hunger around the world, and still am. The problem is, I don’t have tons and tons of money to spread around to all of the charities I think do good work. But I do have a whole bunch of yarn.

So here’s the deal. I’m listing a bunch of yarns I’d like to have taken off my hands, with the intention of donating the proceeds to Heifer. Some of it is really nice stuff, some of it is not-so-fancy. I’m listing suggested prices (which include shipping), but feel free to make me an offer (especially if you think the prices are lower than they should be…I’d be thrilled to be able to donate even more to Heifer!). These are also listed on Ravelry; I’m linking to their “trade/sell” page. Comment here, or send me an email (my contact info is on this page). I’ll try to make note of which ones have pending offers or have already been sold, a quickly as I can. Here goes:

 

Our Thanksgiving Feast

We had a quiet Thanksgiving here at casa whitknits; just my husband and I. With my parents out of the country (my dad is teaching in Jamaica over the break), and my brother spending the holiday with his wife’s family, and with travel being so expensive in the first place, we decided to keep things small here at home. I’m so thankful that we have a lovely little home in which to spend our Thanksgiving together, and for our adorable kitties, for my friends, for President-Elect Obama, and of course, for my wonderful family, even if I’m not getting to see them.

As y’all might already know, my husband and I are both vegetarians. As such, much of the traditional Thanksgiving fare is not our sort of food. I thought it might be fun to share the recipes (or links to the recipes, for the ones we’ve found online) for the delicious vegetarian feast we prepared for ourselves this year. So, with no further ado, here you go!

The Entire Feast

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i got nothin’

My apologies for the blog-silence recently; I’ve not been getting much knitting done, and have been having a bit of a stressful time of things as far as academic stuff is concerned (trying to get a coherent set of research projects started back up after a year in which nothing moved forward thanks to illness is very, very difficult, and often demoralizing). Add to that the time change, which means I now barely see any daylight at all (I’m someone who’s very sensitive to that sort of thing), and I’ve just not been in the mood for much of anything.

Anyway, I’m still here. I thought it might be fun to do the little meme posted over at the Berroco Design Studio Blog. It’s a rather appropriately named one for me; we won’t be going anywhere for Thanksgiving, nor for Solstice, so it’s “staycations” all the way for awhile!

Favorite escapist movie: I fail at favorites, so I’m giving two: Fantasia and Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain.

Favorite libation or wintery beverage: Oooh, I actually have an answer for this one, for the first time ever! I just discovered, thanks to one of my friends, the wonderfulness that is Chai. Namely, Tazo’s Decaf Chai, made with Silk Vanilla Soymilk. I’ve always had a hard time with hot drinks; though I like the smell and flavor, I’m just not a coffee-drinker, and hot cocoa doesn’t taste good to me when it’s made with soymilk, but I’m lactose-intolerant, so if I have it with milk, I’m signing myself up for an uncomfortable next few hours. Tea seemed like the natural solution, but I’ve never liked it; it always just tasted like I was drinking water that someone boiled some dirty grass in or something. Blech. Apparently, though, the solution is to mix that tea with a bunch of awesome spices, and make it in vanilla soymilk…delicious!

A guilty pleasure snack or comfort food recipe: A couple of dark chocolates with a handful of almonds. I don’t even feel guilty about it, though, so maybe it shouldn’t count!

Who or what surrounds you on the couch?: If I cover myself in the wool blanket, I get both cats snuggled up with me!

How do you unwind and shut out the world at the end of the work week?: I’m not very good at unwinding and shutting out the world, actually. What I should do is stuff like yoga and knitting. What I tend to do is frantically run errands that got ignored during the work week. Which is exactly what I’ll be doing tonight, alas.

 

Yes We DID!

Last night wasn’t perfect. For one, Californians seem to have voted to support bigotry, and that breaks my heart.

But.

We just elected Barack Obama to be our next president!

I’m wearing a white shirt today. My family has always had a tradition, after an election, of wearing black if things didn’t go our way, as a way of mourning what could have been. I first remember doing this when Harvey Gantt lost to Jesse Helms down in NC in 1990 (I was 7). I tend to credit Helms with destroying my faith in humanity, during that campaign (though having learned, a couple years earlier, what “trickle down economics” meant, and that Reagan and his followers believed in it, had already done some serious damage to it). To see someone be so awful, and use such blatantly racist advertising during their campaign, and for that person to win…it certainly shattered my little 7-year-old sense of justice.

And now we just elected a man named Barack Obama to be our next president. I almost wish Helms were still alive so that he could see this, see people reject, at least in part, his brand of hate and bigotry. And to see me wearing my celebratory white shirt. Take that, you bastard!

We just gave ourselves a calm, intelligent, compassionate, thoughtful, deliberative, rational, reasonable president…what a change. I have hope, after 8 years (the entirety of my adult life) of watching one awful atrocity after another be committed by my own government and feeling so hopeless and helpless to stop them. I’m so freaking happy today. And I love you all.

I promise, I’ll bring back the knitting soon. I’m not big on hiding my politics (I’m a flaming liberal and I’m not ashamed of it!), but I also don’t intend for this to become a political blog. I’m just too happy for my country right now to think about anything else.

Thank you, and good luck, President-Elect Obama.

 

vote!

I’m interrupting the knitting content on this blog (what am I talking about? Has there been serious knitting content lately?) to implore everyone (well, everyone who lives in the US) to please, please, please:

You’re free to laugh at my sad attempt to render the Obama font/logo in crayon, just so long as you vote! If you haven’t already early/absentee-voted, please go to the polls and vote tomorrow. It’s so important. This site will tell you where your polling place is, in case you don’t already know. Bring your knitting with you; the lines could be long!

 

oh, hi!

I didn’t mean to ignore the blog for more than two weeks! Whoops. I guess that happens when you finish a big project, and then almost immediately take off on a week-long visit with family only to come back with an injured knee (patellar tendonitis, brought on by doing too much walking at zoo with the funny limp I get when the nerve business is acting up in my left leg) and a bunch of academic business to resolve. It’s been a draining couple of weeks, and I don’t have terribly much to share on the knitting front (but I do have some!).

So, to start myself back up again, how about a wordle? I just put my blog feed in, and here’s what I got:

You can tell I’ve been talking a lot about ganseys, eh?

So, what else have I been up to? Well, I decided against bringing the Bog Jacket to Ohio with me (just too bulky to be practical on a trip, even if we were driving), and instead brought Icarus, which is now only a little more than one repeat shy of the beginning of the fancier lace section:

I also brought along some yarn that I’d found while digging through my stash before we left for Ohio, some sock yarn in perfect Project Spectrum colors, and started a sock:

I actually knit the cuff (which is from the “Giotto” pattern by Anna Bell) at my in-law’s house, leaving myself some good old plain stockinette-in-the-round to knit during the brief periods of awakeness in the car on the way home.

Since getting back, my focus has been on my husband’s sweater, where I’ve very nearly reached the end of the back:

I’m definitely enjoying knitting with the Cascade 220. I loved the yarn I used for my gansey, which was much more rustic and wooly, but this softer, smoother stuff is hitting the spot pretty perfectly right now. And the color couldn’t be more perfect for Project Spectrum, either! I’m hoping at some point to finish one of my larger projects off, so that I can cast-on for another PS-oriented sweater (in this case, a purple Forecast) in Cascade 220 without too much guilt over the number of current works-in-progress. We’ll see.

I may write up a WATER-themed post for Project Spectrum sometime soon, but other than that, I have no idea how much I’ll be posting in the next few weeks. In a little over a month, my husband and I are planning to visit the Finger Lakes Fiber Festival, since it is only a short drive from where we live, so if any of y’all, dear readers, are planning to attend (which is probably unlikely, given that not that many of you are Upstate New Yorkers), let me know!