Yarn Frenzy

Okay, this crochet thing is really starting to take a hold of me. Turns out, doing it right is actually faster, and looks better too. I'm doing a project a day or so. The only trouble is finishing, which takes me a while to get to. So I promise, eventually, I will sew on buttons, zippers, snaps, etc and weave in ends and ribbons eventually and show you pictures of my latest obsession.
But one of my guildies alerted me to a sale of CottonTots at Hobby Lobby, and I think I'm going to be in trouble. It's pretty much my go-to yarn for baby and generic projects, and at $2 something a skein, it's nearly half price. I'm not really sure whether I should be grateful for that or not. I'm going to have to go buy a ton of it.
One scary thing I found out yesterday is that I'm frighteningly consistent in my idiosyncracies. I picked up a little notebook I'd used for yarn data before and scribbled down my yarn requirements for a few projects I'm interested in. They tend to frown on you pulling out entire books to look for that sort of thing, and it keeps it all in one place. After I was done, I looked back and found that I had written all my previous entries in exactly the same way. They had messy and cursive writing, though I rarely do either, the exact same bits of information in the exact same order, and the same defiant check mark and "done!" written in the margins.
I'm inclined to believe that different types of handwriting from the same person imply using different sides of the brain dominantly. So you all know, because you're smart like that, that the left side of the brain does the analytical thinking and the right side does the creative thinking. I find when I'm doing physics or math, or even writing about physics, I tend to print. But when I'm doing something like a language class, or writing about knitting, I write cursive. Has anyone else ever noticed something like that? I'm sure it varies quite a bit, but I'm curious about that. It seems true for me at any rate.
Right. Off to buy lots of yarn.

Have you ever noticed....

Have you ever noticed that when you leave the house without knitting (or something), you always regret it? Today, I thought, oh, I'll be busy, I won't bother carrying anything with me. Then I had to wait for half an hour. I should just know better, and keep knitting on me at all times.
Several relatively exciting things have happened in my little knitting world, although none of them actually involve finishing a project (except for a few charity hats), but I have a couple of "almosts". I'm nearly done with the baby sweater I started ages ago. The child it was originally intended for has probably totally outgrown it by now. But it's almost done.
Secondly, the happy guild meeting was yesterday. One of my friends found a pattern I wanted for the Sunburst Sling Bag on eBay for $3 (including shipping) and bought it for me, so I procured that and the delicious recycled sari silk for it. I really can't justify spending the money on that yarn, so I'm not even going to try. But it's on the same plane as chocolate in my mind. Really.
I bought more of that same fantastic yarn to finish the modular scarf I'm working on. Again, can't justify it, but it's really really cool. So that should be done before too long.
Finally, something I can justify. I used a Christmas gift card to Barnes and Noble to get The Happy Hooker, which is Stitch and Bitch for crochet. If you don't know about Stitch and Bitch, you're missing out on the best knitting book ever. (The sequel is a little weird, but fun.) Well it looks the crochet book is the equivalent. These are great learn-to books with great references for every basic stitch, and cool, wearable patterns. Seriously, check both these books out. I knit my way through most of the first Stitch and Bitch, and the crochet bug has bitten me lately.
In theory, I knew how to crochet, but after 30 seconds of reading this book, I figured out I've been doing it "wrong" my whole life. Not that the things looked bad before, it's just good to know. And I'm a lot happier doing it right. I'm working on a one skein little handbag that is incredibly cute. Unfortunately, I still have to do it the wrong way to finish they crochet baby blanket I'm in the middle of.
Also arrived, the Yarn Harlot's Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much. The things she does and says related to knitting are completely insane. I totally relate. Aparently she's got a new book coming out before too long. I'm hooked, despite my previous reservations.
The yarn finally arrived for a knitted baby blanket I'm supposed to be working on. It's just so hard to work on something I know I have to do before I can cast on all these fun things. Now with crochet in the ring too, there's just going to be trouble. I think I'm going to have to drop out of school so I have time to do this all.

St. Patty's Day

Okay, this actually has nothing to do with knitting. I'm going to complain about it anyway.
Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day, and I went to Chicago. I turned 21 not too long ago, so this was my first legal St. Patrick's Day, and I was looking forward to green beer.
I couldn't find it. Anywhere.
Chicago has a very large Irish population, and Chicagoans like their beer. There was plenty of beer, but none of it was green.
How much food coloring can that really cost? Hmm? $0.03 maybe?
So after a long day wandering around Chicago, I came home, bought some Harp, and dyed it green myself. My hands may now be quite stained, but it was so worth it.
And yes, it really does taste better when it's green. That's the taste of satisfaction.

German Yarn

Now, every knitter with a blog has to pay homage to the Yarn Harlot. For a while, I resented her. Why should she get to be popular for writing about knitting when I don't? Other than the fact that she is clearly more talented than I am at both writing and knitting. But then I caved and read her book. And it's funny, and is possessed by the same yarn demon I am that makes me stash, take on bigger projects than I can handle and be emotionally connected to my yarn. I was seduced by the Yarn Harlot.
Today's post is something that I can totally relate to. She picked up a pattern in Finnish and decided to try to knit it. Not two months ago, I did the exact same thing with German.
Now, I speak a little German. I'm of German decent, I have German relatives (though none that are both German and knit). I was pretty sure that if I sat down with a dictionary and the German knititng pattern I would be able to knit anything in this pattern book of cute, traditional German clothes. Boy was I wrong.
It's not the words. Even if I couldn't figure out the words from the real dictionary, there are online knitting dictionaries. The trouble is that the entire pattern is constructed differently. Numbers and symbols appear in no apparent order. Clearly, this is the famed German efficiency and I'm just too slow to understand.
So if anyone thinks they can explain to me how to read a German knitting pattern, please, please do. Because did I mention I bought the yarn for several projects in it? And I want to knit them. Desperately. And it wants to be knit. The yarn is sitting in my closet, sobbing softly.
Someone save that poor, innocent yarn that just wants to be made into German clothing. Hilfe!

And Tonight's Feature Film is.......

She Gods of Shark Reef!
Oh yes. It's bad and it's beautiful. It's also part of my 50 SciFi classic movie pack that I bought a while for $20. I think it's a good deal, possibly one of my best investments. Think about that, only 40 cents per bad science movie. That's less than a penny per minute of bad scienceness. Really, what's the point of Mystery Science Theater when it's so much more fun to do it yourself?
Also, I now own knitted shoes. Sadly, I did not think of these, nor did I even copy them and knit them myself. Nor was I the first person I know to own them (my cousin had them at Thanksgiving). However, I now own them, and cheaply. Marshall Field's is going out of business, which is a terrible thing. That won't stop me from taking advantage of the sale.
More knitting things will appear someday, I promise. I made a Shaker Rib hat that's a little iffy, but kind of cute. It would have been cuter if I had a) paid better attention to gauge (this one always gets me) and b) not run out of yarn. You'd think I'd learn. But you'd be wrong.
I made one of my baby hats with little fair isle hearts. It came out incredibly cute, and entirely by accident. Once again, I started a project and nearly ran out of yarn. So I switched colors and popped in some hearts, and made something that may be too cute too look at. It leaves me itching for more fair isle.
And yet I should so be working on one of my big projects, or perhaps, real work. Spring Break has in theory already started, but I've still got some work to do before I can relax. Then there will be much knitting.

The Dangers of Knitting in Public

I like to knit baby-sized projects. They go very quickly, so you get that sense of instant gratification. I can make my favorite baby hat pattern (the Umbilical Cord Hat from Stitch n Bitch) in 2-3 hours. If you don't think that's instant, clearly you knit entirely by machine/not at all. Also, my knitting guild does a lot for charity, and one of our projects is hats and things for the YWCA women's shelter.

However, one of the dangers of knitting in public is always having to explain yourself when making baby things. I don't have children, nor do I want any in the near future, so whenever I'm caught knitting baby items in public, it's immediately followed with an explanation.
It goes like this.

Someone: What are you knitting?
Me: A baby hat, it'sforcharity/it'sforoneofmymom'sfriends/myfriendsbrother, etc.

(I endured a decent amount of teasing before I figured this out.)
However, at least 25% of the time, when I answer "It'sforcharity," someone inevitably wonders, "Who's charity?"
Don't believe me? Ask my dad.

Nerd Knits

So here's the thing. Once a week, my department has a physics colloquium, where someone comes in from another department or another school and gives a physics-y lecture. Naturally, I use this time to further my physics education by exposing myself to a broad range of research, by which I mean knit. Besides being fun, it also keeps me awake. I'm one of very few women, and, I thought, the only knitter. Until a week or two ago, one of my professors came up and asked me about my knitting. She looks like your typical knitter, but also happens to be a professor of physics. I was working on my double knit scarf, which looks exactly the same only marginally longer, so I'm not going to post another picture. She was fascinated, and started talking about the topology of knitting. This goes way beyond a mobius scarf, but I'll get to that in a moment. I confessed to here that I want to knit the chart of the nuclides every time I see it. Actually, these days it's fairly often, as I'm taking my nuclear physics elective.
I let her borrow the double knitting pattern; it's really simple and I'm sure she'll have no trouble with it. In return, she sent me these links, part of the beauty of nerdy knitting.
First, she told me about this DNA scarf, which she adapted into an afghan for one of her sons. The cable pattern really looks like the DNA chain. It may be biology, but it's still nerdy enough to interest me.
She also found this DNA baby toy, which actually has the correct base pairs. (If you don't care at all about DNA, just translate "base pairs" into "pretty colors," but if you don't care that much, you probably won't knit DNA.)
But it turns out there are many, many nerds out there, which you can easily see thanks to Google. You can crochet a Lorentz manifold. And there are a bunch of other mathematical functions you can knit/crochet here. You can also quilt math things, but I'm not so good at that. In fact, the only quilt I ever tried was assembled completely backwards, and is sitting in my parents garage. Not only was I totally bad at it, I also broke up with the guy I was making it for. This was before I knew about the sweater curse. Aparently there's a quilt curse too.
The moral of the story is, I'm not the only nerdy knitter out there. People have designed these things. And I'm so going knit them.

Closing Ceremonies

For the last 17 days, I have been hopelessly addicted to the Olympics. Thursday I was at a sports bar, and started screaming when the they changed the channel during the women's figure skating final. It's really a good thing that there's only one set of Olympics every two years. But, after watching the closing ceremonies, I'd like to address a few of the important players in this year's events.

Dear Torino,
Thank you for putting on a good show at the opening and closing ceremonies and being slightly weird. I appreciate that in a city. Your medal is certainly unique, by which I mean looks like a donut. I only wish I could have partied with you in person. Maybe when you bring the shroud back out, I'll come visit you. Until then, you'll just have to hope I have to go to Italy for a conference or something. Of course, I'll be wishing that too.

Dear Joey Cheek,
Thank you. Thank you for existing. Thank you for looking cute, even in tights. Thank you for not taking yourself too seriously. Thank you for not fighting with either Chad Hendrik or Shani Davis. Thank you for giving all your money to charity. Marry me.

Dear Apolo Anton Ohno,
I take back 60% of the bad things I've said about you. However, please, please shave the soul patch. It just looks like pubic hair. Don't do that to yourself.

Dear Bode Miller,
Ha ha.

Dear Dick Button,
You are the John Madden of figure skating. Your insightful comment, "If Joe and Sally Front Porch think they can get up and do this, they've got another think coming," has given me an entirely new perspective on your sport. Thank you.

Dear Snowboarding Team,
No really. How much pot do you smoke?

Dear Sasha Cohen and Tanith Belbin,
I'm sorry you only got silver, but you're still very pretty.

Dear Shani Davis,
I'm very disappointed in you. This should have been about your (admittedly impressive) achievement instead of your bad attitude and catfights with Chad Hendrik. Behave yourself.

Dear Bob Costas,
Go home.

Dear Michelle Kwan, Lindsey Kildow, Zhang Dan, Lydia Ierodiaconou and others,
Ouch. I'm sorry I had to see you injure yourselves terribly on international television. I was screaming with pain in sympathy, but I'm sure that didn't help you one bit. Thanks for trying.

Dear Canada,
See you in four years, eh?

Dear Other Athletes,
Thank you for absorbing all of my attention for the last week and a half. I may be falling drasticly behind on my school work, but at least, for about two more days, I'm extremely well informed on current events. The Olympics really kind of do all that stuff that Visa commercials make me tear up about, but I won't actually admit. Now give me back my life.

Guild Day

Man, I'm lazy. Last Sunday was our Guild meeting at Sit 'n Knit. I finished up a couple of things just in time for the meeting.
Although I didn't technically enter Madalyn's UFOlympics, I did take this Olympic opportunity to finish one up. This Tank Girl tank (from Stitch 'n Bitch) in bright blue Goa was languishing at my boyfriend's house for quite some time. It's over 30" of p2k1 ribbing, which makes me really not want to rib anything again for quite a long time. Then, like anything else annoying, I'm going to forget why I hate ribbing so much, pick another entirely ribbed project, and start this process again, possibly with more cursing. That's me looking thrilled in it. My mom is going to wind up getting it, since I don't think I'll actually wear it. It's just one of those things. (Note to self: next time wear makeup before posing for photos.)
I also finished up all the knitting and sewing for the felted bag. I took it home with me to do laundry, which is fine, because my mom is getting anyway. It's good to be my mom.
In guild news, Elizabeth's handspun shawl is even prettier in person, and Kristine finished her black shrug and better post a picture. Other people were knitting socks successfully and making me very jealous, and one woman knits sweaters faster than most people make scarves. One new woman had an incredible intarsia jacket, and while large Chinese fish are not really my style, it was very impressive nonetheless.
I spent approximately the GDP of Malaysia (okay, maybe not quite $118.3 billion, but close) on 3 items. First are these incredible hand-carved horn needles. I don't have a project in mind, but they were too pretty to pass up. I hear the carving doesn't snag, but we'll see. I'm a huge fan of the wide ribbon between the needles instead of the thin wire that always manages to shrink my stitches. They also came with a little hemp carrying case.
I finally got my hands on another skein of the recylcled sari silk yarn, which is just perfect for a modular scarf pattern I had picked up. I waited until I had finished (the first part of) my homework before I started casting on, but it was really, really hard.
And rounding things off was this month's issue of knit.1 magazine, which has a fantastic knitting translator for many languages, and is largely pirate themed. I appreciate that in a magazine. Yargh.

What the sock?

Am I socking retarded? I cannot seem to knit a decent sock to save my soul. At first, I thought it was just the pattern, which took the blame for the much-maligned Ugly Sock. But the pattern looked nice on this one. Yet somehow I knit and wind up with this pile of sock. The foot is like sticking my foot in a wool balloon. It's not that it's just too long. It's slightly too long, despite the fact that I decreased exactly 2" short of the end of my foot like it told me to. It's also miles too wide. One of the variations on the pattern called for ribbing all the way down the top, which is clearly what I should have done. The top of the foot seems to be too wide by exactly the amount that much ribbing would pull in. But the pattern doesn't say to keep ribbing! It doesn't even tell you to decrease if you don't want ribbing. My gauge is fine (yes, I even double-checked it). This is not even something extreme blocking could save. I even thought, well, it will be inside the shoe so it won't matter.....
No. There's too much sock to fit inside the shoe. After several minutes of fiddling I can mush all the extra material into the shoe so it's very uncomfortable, then the cuff looks okay. But if that's what I'm going for I might as well just knit myself ankle warmers with toe straps and slap those on.

So now I have a dilemma. Do I:

A. Rip out this entire thing and try to figure out what the sock is wrong?

B. Knit the other piece of sock to match and give them away/hide them forever?

C. Knit the other sock in a different way and see if it comes out better, redoing the first sock if it works and turning both into cat toys if it doesn't work?

D. Give up on this whole socking thing altogether?

Your comments/magical solutions are greatly appreciated.

No news is no news

Not too much on the knitting front. I made a pair of baby booties with the leftover Blizzard, but they don't have buttons yet, so no picture for you. I'm finishing some embroidering on a little crochet baby sweater, then it needs buttons too. I don't actually have children, or expect to have any time soon, but baby items are just so quick to make. Then I like what I make and can't bear to part with it (which doesn't actually bode well for my future children). Well, I'm storing it all up in a hope chest for use someday. But that someday is going to be a long time from now.

Worfy was a good guard cat yesterday. There was a little brown and black cat outside my window. I thought about trying to go save the cat, but Worfy got all fluffed up and scared it away. I don't really get how that works. I think it's incredibly cute when cats fluff up, and being cute doesn't seem like a particularly good defense mechanism. One of my friends cats fluffs up when she's happy, which is ridiculously cute and makes much more sense to me. Maybe it works against humans. We start melting into a little pile of "awww, kitty" because we can't handle that much concentrated cuteness. But aparently it's scary in cat terms, because the other cat really did back off. I think Worf was rather proud of himself.

Watch the Olymipcs! All of you!
(And especially watch Joey Cheek, because I'm developing a crush on him. )

Shaker Rib Shakedown

Isn't Worfy the best model ever? Even though he just stepped on me and left a cold, wet, paw print. Today he's wearing the scarf I made this evening (yes, one evening) after learning a new stitch at Sheep's Clothing. They had a shaker rib workshop today, and I drove out with a couple of ladies from my knitting guild. Turns out, it's pretty easy, but I totally wouldn't have gotten it from the directions. But, if you're braver than I am, here are the directions if you want to try:
Cast on an even number of stitches
Set up row: *YO, sl1, K1 *, repeat from star
Second row: *YO, sl1, K2tog*, repeat from star
Repeat second row until second coming of Christ or desired length. Cast off as *P1, K2tog*, repeat till end.
I only used 8 sts on size 15 needles for this one.
The yarn is really cool, a bulky called Blizzard. It's 65% alpaca, 35% acrylic and super soft. I only used 1 1/3 skeins for this, ~66 yards/ skein. I would have made it longer, but I got greedy thinking of the cool things I could make with the leftovers. I've got a great pattern for bulky baby booties.
I'd never even heard of shaker rib before, but you can see what it looks like (also, Worfy's belly) in the close up. Paula, the owner of Sheep's Clothing, describes it as spongier then regular ribbing, which is guess is appropriate. It's got a much better rhythm to it than k1p1 too.
Guildies can see it at the next meeting. The rest of you are on your own.

A few objects finished - and a few more begun

During blocking:
Have you ever noticed that when you're working on a project during a movie, or while you're thinking about something, whenever you pick it up again, you find yourself reminded of what you were doing before? Branching Out scarf #2 was finally blocked during Miss Congeniality on Sunday. Therefore, Branching Out scarf #2 is now going to be associated with Miss Congeniality. Hope you like it, Mom.

After Frankenstein's pins are removed:








And here's Worfy, modeling the finished baby hat. I lost my good #7 double points; they could be anywhere in the black hole that is my apartment. I stopped by Erica's today and picked up another set, plus the second set of 9's I need for that tank. And that was all I bought. Technically. Although, like any other sin, the purchase of further yarn has already been committed in my mind. That hand -painted cotton is practically mine....



Now, if you were naive, you'd see these two finished object and be amazed that I narrowed down the number of projects I'm working on. But you, dedicated physicists that you, know the second law of thermodynamics better than that. The entropy of any Sarah always increases.

Now, the felted bag could be done. I've finished the body and the strap, but I've decided to knit all four of the optional pockets. Hey, I've got the yarn, and who doesn't like pockets? Look! A pocket!

Two other premeditated knitting crimes have finally been cast on as well.
First, socks from a fantastic sock yarn I got in Germany. I finally found a sock pattern I liked, because it's customizable for yarn weight, style, etc. This was great, until I wanted a ribbed sock, and promptly followed the pattern for the flat one. I pulled back about 2" to get back to the 1" of ribbing I had knit, and reworked it. Now, they make me cackle with glee. I will knit both. Take that, ugly sock. May you forever remain single.

The other was a pattern I picked up on an unscheduled trip to Sheep's Clothing. I've wanted to try double knitting for a while, and it is really, really cool. I'm knitting both sides of the fabric at once. I'm having visions of an entire sweater knit, both sides at once, with its lining in place. Then I realized that once the novelty of double knitting wears off, it will combine all the irritation of ribbing with all the twisted yarn of fair isle. Then double knitting will become that "it" shirt from last season, sitting in your closet, begging to come out, but being just so popular six months ago, you can't wear it until it's cool again in 5 years. (Except for ponchos. I never did that. Never will.) But for now, it's still really, really cool. And it will also remind me of the Super Bowl when my dad's team finally won. Yay, Jerome Bettis.

Worfy

My cat Worf, looking incredibly cute as he helps me model a baby hat I'm working on. I learned a really great word in German the other day, to describe a cat, "graugetigert." It means grey striped, but it's really more of grey tigered. I told Worfy and it made it him feel ferocious. Can't you tell?

Attention

My cat Worf is really cute.
That is all.

A hand(wash)y thing

So I was shopping for yarn today. Not that I can afford it, but I can just look, can't I? At any rate, each yarn was followed by all those incomprehensible washing and care directions. Okay, the basin of water with the hand it make sense, but those other ones? I realized that while I had no clue what those meant, surely Google had the answer. I found this link very helpful. The triangle is not an iron, as I had suspected, but bleach. Now you know.

Proof That I Am Completely Insane

Basically, my current projects.

Projects I have Actually Cast Something On For

Crazy Intarsia Blanket
Since the intarsia disasters of yore, I have actually become rather good at it. I swatched a couple of very complex flower patterns that were fun to knit but too ugly to ever make anything out of. I made a really cute monkey backpack from Stitch 'n' Bitch This lead me to believe that I was the Queen of Intarsia, and could therefore tackle Nicky Epstein's 26-color Royal Tapestry afghan. No, you read that right. Twenty-six colors. And she doesn't make it easy. While there may be only [sic] 5 or so colors per row, some of those same colors are on opposite ends of the afghan. This means I am working with something like 10 bobbins per row. So far. After one false try, where I tried to sneak entirely too much Fair Isle in, I'm doing this blanket again from scratch. I say blanket, but I really mean tapestry, because there is no way I am weaving in all those ends. They will be hidden by a nice carpet backing, then mounted to the wall. (At first I thought about untangling things for the picture, then I realized that it summed up the situation quite well.)


Branching Out Scarf #2










I did one Branching Out scarf in baby alpaca and I was so happy with how it came out . It was my first serious attempt at lace, but I highly recommend it. I was so pleased that I decided to make another one, out of electric blue mercerized cotton. This scarf is almost done. In fact, it could be done right now if I decided I wanted it to be. But I made a mistake about 5 rows ago and I'm too lazy to go back and fix it, but too stubborn to just cast off now and pretend it didn't happen.

Adrienne Vittadini Tank
This is the aforementioned tank. I was shopping with a mission at the best knitting store in the world, Sheep's Clothing in Valparaiso, IN, when a small ball of hot pink yarn started calling me from the corner of the store. It had 400 yards a skein, it was on sale, and it was made of bamboo. "Bamboo?" I said. I had a momentary vision of knitting the bamboo yarn on bamboo needles while eating bamboo shoots with bamboo chopsticks. It could be done. But the yarn was kind of stiff, and a little waxy, soI decided the best thing for that was lace. (Note: I had not actually done any lace at this point.) I found a really cool tank top by Adrienne Vittadini (which I had to look up to spell). Not only is it lace, it also involves cables, and a twist at the front that involves knitting on two pair of needles simultaneously. Although clearly insane, I was happy with this, but it went to the back of my project pile for a while. I was hanging out in Sit and Knit one day, when one woman, clearly an experienced knitter, told me, "One designer to definitely stay away from is Adrienne Vittadini." And yet I'm doing lace and cables in bamboo.

Ribbed Tank
I'm also making a bright blue ribbed tank called Tank Girl from Stitch 'n' Bitch. The Goa was on sale, and I think I'm determined to knit everything in that book at least once. Yes, I've even made the bikini. As for this tank, I've knit the front, and now must move on to the identical back. The only trouble is the 12" of p2k1 ribbing I have to do before I can do any shaping. The thing about ribbing is that not only is it easy, by which I mean boring, it's also rather irritating to switch the yarn every stitch or two. And there are 12" of it. At the moment, iIt's languishing at my boyfriend's house, waiting for me to get involved in a good movie and sit there knitting mindlessly. Due to the knitlist protection program, no photo is available.

Aran Sweater that Hates Me
My mom, who is so incredibly lucky that I knit, requested an aran cardigan out of cotton (she has a thing about wool). Having just completed a fairly nice cashmerino sweater with two large braided cables down the front, I decided I was also the Queen of Cables. Unfortunately, this does not qualify me to be Queen of Bobbles and Other Aran Motifs. My pattern choice is also a vintage one off the internet with one black and white picture, no diagrams, and called for a yarn that has not been made for about 30 years. Still, I was determined. After 2" of ribbing, which we've already discussed, the back piece, of which there is not even a picture, begins its 16-line stitch repeat. The first line calls for bobbles. I don't get bobbles. The other night, reading the directions like a book before bed, it may have finally clicked. Look! Two things that sort of look like bobbles! But I will conquer this beast. Or my mom will get a much simpler cardigan with two large braided cables up the front.

Felted Bag
Here's the thing about felting. No matter how interesting the pattern actually is, there is generally a portion on any felted bag pattern that reads "Knit in the round with stocknitte stitch until the second coming of Christ." I thought this would be a quick and simple project to distract me from the things that give me brain freeze. It was, in fact, a little too simple. There was a point where it became about as fun as the Spanish Inquisition (which according to one of my very Catholic friends, "wasn't that bad"). It was that horrible, terrifying moment where knitting became work. Fortunately, I have knitted past that point of terror and the body of the bag is nearly done. Now I get to knit the straps until whatever theological event follows the second coming of Christ (the third coming?) and the pockets (which are probably related to minor prophets, or until I run out of yarn). And the particularly cruel thing? I will get less fabric than I actually knit. Although I love dropping the finished item in the washer like a naughty child destroying an expensive toy, I have put about 30% more work into this project that I will actually get out. Curse you, second law of thermodynamics!

Things I should not have knit.

Now this is a blog. This is a forum for me to share with you the good and bad of my knitting life. Lest you think I'm going to take this opportunity to brag, I will first share with you the bad. It's more fun anyway. And besides, what better way to get to know someone than to revel in their past mistakes?

The Mrs. Clause Sweater
Now, on the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this sweater. Sure, it's novelty acrylic, but it was my first sweater. I still think I look good in hot pink. I can be forgiven for bad yarn choice, can't I? So when it comes down to it, there is nothing wrong with this sweater. If your name is Mrs. Clause.


The Ugly Sock
Again, technically there is nothing wrong with this composition. I have no problem knitting in the round on dpn. It makes me feel smart. However, I knit the sock right off the ball band pattern without looking at any pictures or seeing any samples. And it's ugly. So ugly I will not make another one. Please understand, this is not a case of One-Sock-itis. I could knit another one if I wanted to. I've knit a complete pair of gloves. I plan to knit a different pair of socks. I simply will not knit this ugly monstrosity again. Two of these do not need to be unleashed upon the world.


Reinvented Intarsia afghan
This is a mistake from my very early knitting days. Do you see what this is a photo of? It was supposed to be an intarsia block afghan. However, I did not take the trouble to really learn what "intarsia" meant. So when I needed to change colors, I cut the yarn. every. single. row. This created bizarre end fringe in the middle of the afghan block.
Why haven't I scrapped this project yet and used the rest of that nice cotton yarn? Because I am compeltely insane, and I've convinced myself that I can do it right from now on, and the first blocks can be salvaged simply by weaving in ends. No problem, right? It's only four ends over 50 rows, twice. It could be done, and for that reason will sit in my stash until the end of time, or I'm so broke I can longer afford even Walmart yarn. Did I also mention the colors are kind of ugly together? And I'm no longer following the original pattern? And I probably don't even have enougn yarn to finish it?

Cabled Itchy Noro Armwarmers of Doom
This is a case of "But it looked cute in the book." In the book, the gradiation of they yarn was subtle and lovely. In the book, the cable pattern showed. In the book, the model was smiling, not scratching her arm with a crazed look on her face. And yet I followed the weirdest cable chart I have ever seen to wind up with ugly armwarms that don't even show the cable pattern. The color is not at all even, and they itch. They itch like allergic reaction meets chicken pox meets "maybe you should see a doctor about that". And I just noticed from the photo they actually make my hand look fat. That's not even fair. But at least there are two of them.


Not making a photo appearance is:
The Incredible Expanding Hat
Now, I love cotton. More importantly, my mother, who gets 78% of all my knitted items, loves cotton. So when my best friend wanted a hat for Christmas, I used the leftover cotton yarn I had. I didn't follow a pattern, I just guessed the circumference of a head, and started knitting, making decreases when I thought appropriate. It worked, for a while. And then she started wearing it. If you don't know, cotton expands. It expands like a sorority girl with an engagement ring. And the hat proceded to expand on my best friend's head, until I'm pretty sure she could have turned it upside down and used it for luggage. I heard no end of it until this year, when she got the replacement hat she wanted. One with ears.

Please, stay tuned. I'm sure I will knit more hideous or useless things in the future. And once in a while, I might even come up with something nice.

String Theory

Well, okay, I owe you a brief explanation of what string theory really is. And it is (drumroll please....) exactly what it sounds like. It's a (real) theory in physics that postulates that everything is made of up of tiny strings that vibrate back and forth. It can involve all sorts of sci-fi sounding things like extra dimensions (that are too small to measure) and quantum gravity. The trouble is, we have absolutely no way, as of yet, of knowing if it is real or not, because it's all too small to measure.
This is not at all the area of physics I work in, for one main reason and several correlations.
The reason is:
It is theory.
This means:
1. There is no funding for it.
2. It involves really hard math, even compared to normal physics.
3. Theorists tend to be a little weird, even compared to normal physicists.
4. It is really esoteric, by which I mean "sounds made-up."
5. There will be no chance to confirm any of it anywhere within my lifetime.
So why bother? Because physicists like to think we know it all. Until anything about it is proven wrong, which won't be possible for a very long time, string theorists can run around thinking they have The Answer to Everything. That's more or less why anyone does physics.
So what does this have to do with knitting? Very little. There is only one correlation, and by now I think you've got it. What is your sweater made of? Tiny strings that you can't see unless you look really closely. What are you and the rest of the entire universe possibly made of? Tiny strings that you can't see.