h00t and/or ORLY?
I had a few more setbacks yesterday, like discovering that I had cast on the proper number of stitches for the sleeve as written, instead of for the sleeve as I was modifying it (note: your wrist is generally a much smaller circumference than your upper arm). Then after I fixed that little problem and made the sleeves properly, I attached the sleeves and worked several rows before I noticed that, in fact, I had attached only one sleeve. More ripping. I did make it about halfway through the owl cable last night, and was able to bind off just as the big hockey game started this afternoon (and boy am I glad I was done with the knitting before the game -- I never would have been able to maintain even tension while watching that!).
I sewed on the very last eye just before the closing ceremonies began on NBC. As soon as the gold medal badge is available, you'll see it over in the right hand column there.
Despite the fact that I personally had a lot of difficulty with this pattern, I want to make it clear that the fault was all mine -- the pattern itself is very clearly written and easy to follow. I did make a few modifications, to wit:
- I did not work any of the short rows. I'm pretty curvy, and I knew I was knitting with a good deal of negative ease, so I basically decided to let my boobs do the work of the short rows.
- I (obviously) shortened the sleeves. Once I got over my attack of the stupids, all I did was cast on the number of stitches you should have after you've done all the increases for the long sleeves.
- I did not bind off the stitches called for at the armhole. I'm not sure what that's all about, but I've made enough sweaters with similar construction that didn't call for binding off stitches there that I felt safe skipping it. It turned out fine. YMMV.
- I added an extra row of plain knitting when I joined the sleeves to the body. The pattern as written seems to indicate that you should begin working the first row of the owl cable as you're joining, and frankly, that just seemed like asking for trouble, all things considered.
- I did not bind off with a larger needle, but instead used the elastic bind-off I always use on sock cuffs.
I am both very, very pleased with the end product, and very pleased with myself for getting it done. In addition to this project, I finished up Becky's sweater (finally!), did a pretty decent job of decluttering and wiping down surfaces in preparation for dinner guests, went to a rock concert, and pretty much maintained a normal life.
I'm taking a little break from crazy-making knitting and just working on a pretty Clapotis to wear at Fortunetide (the Otherworld ball) this year. And Becky's been demanding a scarf, so it seems like I'll probably cast that on sometime this week. Oh, and I need to make a dice bag before PAX East. After that, maybe, I'll get back to more complicated projects like the Simply Knitted Bodice and the Fishtail Lace Tunic. Or the Favorite Cardigan. Or maybe that cabled sweater from the old VK I've been wanting to reknit...
I really should be knitting right now
Two days left of the Olympics, and I've still got sleeves and yoke left to go on the sweater. I was in pretty good shape up until last Friday, when I had knitted the body up past the increases and decided to try it on to see how far I still needed to go to make it to the armholes. So it turns out that if you're knitting a very fitted sweater, and you've lost 40lbs or so since you last took your measurements, "guesstimating" is not the way to choose your size. I was looking to have about 2-3" of negative ease, and ended up with about 4" of positive ease. Rip.
Yesterday I finally got back to the point where I was ready to try on the body again: success! It's exactly as fitted as I want it to be. So I took a little break to pick out the eyes for the owls. There will be 19 owls total, which means I need 38 buttons. I had considered just going out and purchasing some, but really, with the number of buttons I have in the basement, that just seems silly. I knew there was no way I had 38 of the same button, so I decided that each owl would have a different set of vintage button eyes. To keep this from looking like a crazy circus freak sweater, I wanted them all to be fairly close in hue and value, so I chose blue, green, and grey.
I found lots of buttons that would be perfect...if owls only had one eye. Turns out the problem with having lots of unique buttons is that many of them are unique in the literal sense of the word. I was finally able to find 19 pairs of the right size and in complementary shades, but it took much longer than I had planned, cutting into precious knitting time.
I was able to work up to the armholes last night before I was finally too tired to knit anymore, and had planned on casting on the sleeves this morning (remember, I'm doing short sleeves so they really shouldn't take all that long [insert mildly hysterical laughter here]), but then discovered that I had neglected to wind any more skeins into balls (there is actually a reason I did this: my ball winder keeps trying to eat my yarn, so I have ordered a new one. Sadly, it's not here yet.). So I went to do that, only to discover that the first two skeins I pulled out were so tangled I had to wind them manually. Grrrr.
However, I am finally ready to sit down and knit. If I can get the sleeves done before lunch (see above re: hysterical laughter), I'll be in pretty good shape, I think. Cross your fingers for me!
Teh Geeky One*
A note to family and the two of you who still read this for the very occasional knitting content: there will be none of that today. This is totally about me being a geek. No knitting or family content will be provided. Also, I feel like it's going to be pretty long. And I'm not going to be explaining the acronyms unless you ask really nicely in the comments. Proceed at your own risk.A few months ago, I had a conversation with a friend** wherein I mentioned that I was tired of companies trying to get me to change technologies. I'm a videophile, but really, the switch from video to DVD was enough for me. I'm perfectly happy with DVDs. Really, I am. And we own a bunch of them, so I was really not looking to switch to Blu-Ray and having to buy all the same movies yet again. Then my friend told me that you can still play your DVDs on a Blu-Ray player. And he extolled the virtues of their prettiness. And also pointed out that the PS3 is a Blu-Ray player that comes with a gaming system added on for not much more than the cost of a decent stand-alone player. These are all pretty convincing arguments, and the trifecta*** convinced me to ask for a PS3 for my birthday.
So Kit, because he has a hard time saying "no" to me (I think it's the big brown eyes), ordered me one. There's a saga involving P.C. Richard's, UPS, and a signature, but it eventually (through yet more effort on Kit's part) came safely to me on Monday. I hooked it about fifteen minutes after it got here (yes, I know it's not my birthday yet. Shut up.) and it only took me that long because I had to take it out of its set of three nested boxes. No, I am not kidding.
By the time I got it all hooked up it was pretty late, and we didn't have any Blu-Rays yet, and we only had the one game that came with the bundle (he got me the 160GB large box with Uncharted: Drake's Fortune) and I'm a little too spazzy with it to be comfortable playing it with an audience. As much as I enjoy video games, I lack the thumb skillz to actually play a lot of them. So I played it for about 5 minutes, just to check it out a little, and I put it away.
You see, Kit goes to the local gaming store for some D&D action on Thursdays, so I knew I'd have a chance to play around with my fancy new toy to my heart's content tonight. I even popped into GameStop and picked up a couple of additional games (Oblivion and Ironman, for those keeping score at home). I have been excited about playing these games all week.
So while the kids were watching their pre-bed TV (live action Tick on Netflix Instant, which is considerably less painful than many of their other choices, but there are only 9 of them so I pretty much have them memorized at this point), I picked up a book that arrived the other day, because I've been trying to get back into reading more and during the 35th viewing of an episode of any show seems like a good time to make some progress along those lines. The book I grabbed happened to be
Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton.
I do not remember the last time I picked up a book and read it cover-to-cover in one sitting, though it was almost certainly before Becky was born. (Wait, when did the last Harry Potter come out? That was probably it, though that was mostly so Kit could get to it fairly quickly.) Despite my desire to totally geek out on my PS3 tonight, I knew as soon as I'd read the first chapter that I was going to spend tonight reading this book. And I did. And it was totally, totally worth it.
A little background on how I came to have this book at all: I'm not really a Star Trek person, though I've been exposed to enough of it that I can keep up with basic discussions about it, and I did watch STNG for a season or two, so I knew who Wil Wheaton was****, but never really cared one way or the other about Wesley Crusher. So when people I respect kept tweeting and/or linking to
his blog posts, I started following him just because I find his writing entertaining. And also, he seems like a pretty cool guy. And a total geek. So I figured, what the hell?
I both belly-laughed and had tears well up at several points while I was reading. I felt nostalgic, and like I was hanging out with some cool guy, and like geekiness was cool (to be fair, I mostly think geekiness is cool anyhow, but I'm aware that lots of people don't). At some points I just sat back and enjoyed his stories, and at a couple of points, I had some personal epiphanies. Pretty fucking good for <300 pages. I chose wisely when I chose analog over digital tonight.
* This was an actual typo, but it fit with the theme and gave me a giggle when I noticed it, so I left it.
**This conversation actually happened at least three times with at least three separate people.
***"Perfecta" is in the Firefox dictionary but "trifecta" isn't? WTF?
****Yes, I also knew him from Stand By Me, among other things he did when he was younger.
You may have noticed that's it's been a while since I blogged here.
(Pause to wait for laughter to die down.) I've been busy with work and other stuff, and most of my blogging energies have been directed towards stuff over on the
Lion Brand blog. But I actually kind of miss blogging over here, too, and I've been inspired lately so I'm going to try to start this back up again.
In a fit of violent optimism I signed up for the Knitting Olympics over at the
Yarn Harlot's site (relevant posts
here and
here). I am knitting the
Owls sweater by Kate Davies with some 50/50 llama/merino wool that I picked up at Rhinebeck a few years ago. It's a little lighter than the bulky yarn called for by the pattern, so I'm (now) knitting the largest size, which should actually end up being the same measurements (give or take) as the medium size. After a couple of (read: 4) false starts, I'm now up past the waist decreases, so I'm feeling pretty good about my progress. I will be doing a modified version with short sleeves, not for time consideration but because I think it'll look better on me.
Unfortunately, I now need to set it aside for a bit and finish Becky's sweater. Because really, the poor kid's been waiting for this thing for almost a year. Bad mommy. I've only got the very top bit of one of the fronts left to knit and then I think there's a little neck edging, and then just sewing it together. I really don't want to put it off for another two weeks. So I'm hoping to get it finished tonight
(pause again for laughter), at which point I will begin working on the Olympic sweater again in earnest, with only occasional breaks to work on the three (!!!!) baby projects I need to start/finish (note to friends who are planning more babies: could y'all please space your due dates out a little more? kthxbai).
