Yarn

At least the knitters will find it funny...

Take George Carlin's "On Stuff" and replace stuff with yarn.

Observe:

"Actually this is just a place for my yarn, ya know? That's all, a little place for my yarn. That's all I want, that's all you need in life, is a little place for your yarn, ya know? I can see it on your table, everybody's got a little place for their yarn. This is my yarn, that's your yarn, that'll be his yarn over there. That's all you need in life, a little place for your yarn. That's all your house is: a place to keep your yarn. If you didn't have so much yarn, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time.

A house is just a pile of yarn with a cover on it. You can see that when you're taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody's got a little pile of yarn. All the little piles of yarn. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn't want somebody to come by and take some of your yarn. They always take the good yarn. They never bother with that crap you're saving. All they want is the shiny yarn. That's what your house is, a place to keep your yarn while you go out and get...more yarn!

Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your yarn anymore. Did you ever notice when you go to somebody else's house, you never quite feel a hundred percent at home? You know why? No room for your yarn. Somebody else's yarn is all over the place! And if you stay overnight, unexpectedly, they give you a little bedroom to sleep in. Bedroom they haven't used in about eleven years. Someone died in it, eleven years ago. And they haven't moved any of his yarn! Right next to the bed there's usually a dresser or a bureau of some kind, and there's NO ROOM for your yarn on it. Somebody else's shit is on the dresser.

Have you noticed that their yarn is shit and your shit is yarn? God! And you say, "Get that shit offa there and let me put my yarn down!"

Sometimes you leave your house to go on vacation. And you gotta take some of your yarn with you. Gotta take about two big suitcases full of yarn, when you go on vacation. You gotta take a smaller version of your house. It's the second version of your yarn. And you're gonna fly all the way to Honolulu. Gonna go across the continent, across half an ocean to Honolulu. You get down to the hotel room in Honolulu and you open up your suitcase and you put away all your yarn. "Here's a place here, put a little bit of yarn there, put some yarn here, put some yarn--you put your yarn there, I'll put some yarn--here's another place for yarn, look at this, I'll put some yarn here..." And even though you're far away from home, you start to get used to it, you start to feel okay, because after all, you do have some of your yarn with you. That's when your friend calls up from Maui, and says, "Hey, why don'tchya come over to Maui for the weekend and spend a couple of nights over here."

Oh, no! Now what do I pack? Right, you've gotta pack an even SMALLER version of your yarn. The third version of your house. Just enough yarn to take to Maui for a coupla days. You get over to Maui--I mean you're really getting extended now, when you think about it. You got yarn ALL the way back on the mainland, you got yarn on another island, you got yarn on this island. I mean, supply lines are getting longer and harder to maintain. You get over to your friend's house on Maui and he gives you a little place to sleep, a little bed right next to his windowsill or something. You put some of your yarn up there. You put your yarn up there. You got your Visine, you got your nail clippers, and you put everything up. It takes about an hour and a half, but after a while you finally feel okay, say, "All right, I got my nail clippers, I must be okay." That's when your friend says, "Aaaaay, I think tonight we'll go over the other side of the island, visit a pal of mine and maybe stay over."

Aww, no. NOW what do you pack? Right--you gotta pack an even SMALLER version of your yarn. The fourth version of your house. Only the yarn you know you're gonna need. Money, keys, comb, wallet, lighter, hanky, pen, smokes, rubber and change. Well, only the yarn you HOPE you're gonna need."

Hilarity.

Promised "Pattern"

Two at once, toe up, Magic Loop

Cast on 12 in a figure 8 cast on, inc every other round to 64 stitches (32 each needle). Once knitting clears base of toes, begin p1,(k6,p2),k6,p1 instep ribbing. Two inches before back of heel, begin Baudelaire Heel (see posts below). Continue instep rib, knitting back of heel in st st until knitting reaches the shoe line, begin knitting rib pattern around til sock is desired length or very little yarn remains. Finish cuff with one inch of 1x1 twisted rib. Bind off with EZ’s sewn bind off.

Yay! Almost Done!

bamboowip2
Originally uploaded by wlturland

The heel ended up being thus...

Knit across til 11 stitches remain. Wrap and turn (w&t). Purl til 11 stitches remain. Wrap and turn (w&t). Continue to w&t until 10 stitches on each side are wrapped, ending on a purl row.

Knit back, pick up and conceal 1st wrap (see Cat Bordhi's youtube video linked in previous posts). Continue picking up and concealing wraps until last wrapped stitch. Pick up, conceal and knit together with 1st unwrapped stitch. Turn, slip 1, repeat pick up and conceal wraps with purl side. Turn, slip 1.

Knit back to slipped stitch. SSK slipped stitch and next stitch. Turn. Purl back to slipped stitch. P2tog slipped stitch and next stitch. Turn. Repeat until 32 stitches remain on needle.

Resume knitting in the round, instep in pattern, sole st st until stockinette panel reaches the top of shoe heel. Repeat instep pattern on sole stitches to form leg and cuff. Knit til leg is long enough or yarn runs out. BO loosely with preferred BO method (personally I like Elizabeth Zimmerman's sewn bind off).

Boo! Bad Heel!

My beautiful socks hate me!

Turned the heel. Heel looks like crap, full of holes. Rip back. Start new heel. Heel goes wonderfully (the Baudelaire Heel from Knitty, just to let ya'll know). Try on sock. Cry. Rip heel again.



(Just in case it's not obvious: the heel turns about 1/2 an inch behind where my actual heel turns... the socks are too long!)

Edit: I'll keep adding edits as I work on figuring this out tonight... right now I've frogged one sock back to the point where the sole has been increased to 46 stitches. I'm starting the Baudelaire "style" heel by leaving 10 stitches on each side of the sole unwrapped, and 12 in the center, resulting in 7 wrapped stitches on each side.

Two at once, Toe up Thoughts

So, I'm working on Two at once, Toe up, Magic Loop socks... not as easy as I thought it'd be.

Starting the toes on magic loop with a figure 8 cast on is kind of a pain. Very floppy, very slippery. The best way I've found to do this is to work one toe all the way through the increases, stopping right after an increase round, then put the first one on a holder and start the second, increasing til the number of stitches matches the first toe, stopping right after an increase round. From there, just knit around, making sure to knit one half of each sock on to each side of the loop in the proper order and voila! Two socks, one needle!

Secondly, math blows. I'd love to say I became an artist so that I wouldn't have to do math, but the truth is that I do math constantly as an artist, so I really don't want any more than I absolutely must have in my knitting. Therefore, I have looked carefully at many other socks I have made and come to the conclusion that however many stitches started the toe is how many stitches should be left in the center of the heel when turning. No fancy math or anything like that, just subtract the number of stitches used for the toe-up cast on from the total number of sole stitches and divide the remainder by two!

For my current sock, this means 32 sole stitches, minus 12 starting stitches leaves 20 stitches, 10 on each side to wrap and turn in my short row heel. This would still work with a traditional heel flap in that to start the heel turn after knitting the flap I would knit across 21 stitches, SSK, turn and purl back 11, p2tog, ect. until only 12 stitches remain. What if, uh-oh!, I had 33 stitches? Easy, peasy! Make your center stitch count 13, with 10 on each side, or if you have a narrow heel 11 center with 11 on each side! Problem solved.

Finally, short rows require exceptionally tight knitting. Forgetting to pull a wrap up really tight or to knit the next stitch in the turn when picking up wraps really tight results in a funky looking little almost-hole. I'll have to see how it turns out in the wash, but right now, I'm not happy. Now, if it straightens up in the wash, I may abandon my figure 8 increasing toe and go with a figure 8 short row toe. We'll see how that goes :)

Until next time: "Follow your spirit and upon this charge cry, 'God for Harry! England and St. George!"

VICTORY!

I survived the semester! However, that little three week excursion into a level of madness beyond my usual insanity has prompted me to begin building a studio in the back yard. I don't think I can sustain what I just did over three weeks for the thirty two weeks it will take to complete senior thesis.

What have I been doing since the end of finals? Knitting of course!

FO: Horcrux Socks.
CastOn: May 2007
CastOff: November 2007
Yarn: Self-Dyed, Self-Striping Superwash Ravenclaw Film



WIP: Undefined Vanilla Two-at-Once Toe-Up Socks
CastOn: December 2007
Yarn: Fortissima Socka Bamboo



Since I'm figuring out the pattern as I go, here's what I have so far:

On circular needles, Figure-8 CastOn 12 stitches. Begin increases as follows: 1) Knit one round. 2) KLL after first and KRL before last stitch of each needle. Repeat rows 1 and 2 until knitting covers the first four toes and touches the littlest toe. Knit around until knitting covers all toes. Begin instep pattern (My pattern is 6x2 ribbing). Knit around until knitting reaches 2 inches before the back of the heel.

That's where I have to stop since I haven't gotten too my heel yet :)

BUT, here's the "plan":

Using the Cat Bordhi's wrap and turn method, knit across the sole until 1 stitch remains. Wrap that stitch and turn. Purl back until 1 stitch remains. Wrap that stitch and turn. *Knit back until 1 stitch remains before the wrapped stitch. Wrap that stitch and turn. Purl back until 1 stitch remains before the wrapped stitch. Wrap that stitch and turn.* Two stitches on each side are wrapped. Repeat between the * until all but the center 12 stitches are wrapped. Using Cat Bordhi's conceal wrap method, pick up the wraps as you work back and forth to turn the heel.

More knitting action to come as the holidays wear on! Same knit time, same knit channel!

I've also been able to get back to playing World of Warcraft the Trading Card Game. Yes, I flop cardboard onto a table for fun. Right now I'm working on a killer new version of Hoot-n-Shoot if anyone has any Bestial Wraths or Blastershot Launchers to donate to the cause.

More Knitting!

Muwhahaha! I have completed sock #1 of the Horcrux socks! Complete with Ravenclaw colors, dyed out to self-stripe in the Order of the Phoenix pattern. I only used 40 grams for this one, so hopefully I can make an identical twin for it rather than having to settle for a fraternal.


That is all.

http://scarletknits.etsy.com

OMG! Knitting! (pic heavy)

Yes, I know. It's a knitting post! With all the craziness at the end of the semester, I could only knit while sitting in lecture, which meant not much knitting got done at all. Funny thing is, I don't have a picture of the socks I knit in that class. Maybe next post.

So, first to the dye pot. I've been making custom orders for people wanting Harry Potter yarns that self-stripe and selling them on Etsy (hence the link in the sig of every post. I hate having to dig for it, so I stuck it there.). Here's a sampling:

Ravenclaw, film colors:

Ravenclaw, book colors:

Syltherin:

I also created a custom colorway for a friend's graduation gift, but I'm still waiting on Diva to send me the pictures I took with her camera.
Update:


So, actual knitting, I have some vanilla socks for hubby done in the Lion Brand Magic Stripes Denim Stripe colorway:

Yes, those are my feet in his socks. Interesting discovery: socks knit for hubby fit me! Yay! Sock swapping!
Next, my Horcrux socks in progress, just before the heel of the first sock:

And a much needed detail of the pattern panel:

Hopefully I'll have pics of my Aran Braided Socks for the next post :)

http://scarletknits.etsy.com

Etsy

I created an Etsy store to sell my handpainted yarns from. Currently, there's only one hank in the store, but I'm working on finishing more to post. Have a visit at Scarlet Knits Store.