nerd knits

I love Halloween, and I love Carrie, and rumor has it that Carrie loves Halloween as well.  Therefore, it seemed that the right thing to do was to knit Carrie and pair of spider socks for Halloween.

What?  It makes perfect sense to me.

Thus, at long last, I present to you the stealth project:

I assure you, they pop better in person.

Pattern: Spider Socks, by Terri Knight (Ravelry links)

Size Made: Women’s size 9.5-10ish

Yarn: Knitpicks Risatta (42% Cotton, 39% Superwash Merino Wool, 13% Polyamide, 6% Elite Elastic) in Ash

Needles: Addi Turbo Lace needles, US 2 (3mm), 47”

Opinions:  These were so much fun to knit!  The ever-changing pattern and excitement of watching the big spider develop made them breeze by.  The little spiders down on the feet weren’t nearly as tedious as I expected them to be, and they’re just so darn cute!  Really, a very pleasurable knit.  My only complaint would be that though the big spider is charted, the chart is not well-integrated into the pattern (i.e. the written pattern doesn’t tell you explicitly when the chart begins.)  For those who prefer written instructions, this is the pattern for you!  The whole thing is written out, row by row.  For those of us who prefer charts (that would be me,) you have to do a wee bit of thinking and planning to make sure that things line up properly, and to make sure the cables on the back happen in the right place.

Oh, didn’t I mention the cables on the back?

The yarn was nice to work with – soft and springy without being as elastic as, say, Cascade Fixation.  The wool makes the cotton easy on the hands, and I figured the blend would be perfect for someone who lives in the desert and might not need a thick pair of wool socks.

The pattern suggests using two circs or magic loop, and after thinking it over I decided that there was a good reason for it.  Despite my stated preference for dpns, I do like magic loop and used it here to great effect.  For something with patterning like this, it really is the best choice (in my not-so-humble opinion.)

All in all, I’m delighted, and I hope Carrie enjoys wearing them as much as I enjoyed knitting them.

I usually don’t have a problem with second sock syndrome.  I mean, yeah, the second sock is often a little more boring than the first, but because I’m a mostly monogamous knitter, I generally don’t end up with a lot of single socks floating around.  Sometimes a pair of socks takes me forever, since I often keep socks as my purse knitting and my purse knitting is often sadly neglected, but I really never have two pairs of socks going at once.

As I was planning for Sock Summit, however, I ran into a problem – well, two of them, actually.  First, I wanted to make sure that all my sock-knitting needles were clear, so that I would be able to use any set of needles I needed, for whatever class might need them.  Second, I wanted to have a sock project on the needles that would be engaging enough to be interesting but not overwhelming and, yes, something to impress my fellow sock knitters.  (What can I say?  I’m shallow.)  My set of US3 dpns were being inhabited by the first sock of a pair – a nice, comfy, happy 6X1 rib sock in a color of Cascade Fixation that reminds me of candy.  I loved the sock, and it was going well, but I didn’t think it was sufficient to impress anybody.

So I finished up that first candy-like sock, set it aside, and cast on for the Red Herrings.

And thus has my poor candy sock sat, alone, unloved and unmatched, since August.  How could I, in good conscience, have cast on for a delectable baby sweater while I could hear my poor sock keening quietly in the night?

Cry no more, little sock.  Your solemate is coming.

Happy Halloween, kids.

I seem to always run into this problem.

I’m a few rows from finishing the toe, here.  I’ve pulled the needles out, hoping that it will make a difference.

It doesn’t.

And so now I ponder.  I made up this pattern.  I had the idea, and it would be lying to say that the execution has gone exactly as I hoped.  I mean, I like it, I do, but it wasn’t everything I’d hoped it would be.  I think that, for what I really envisioned, this yarn didn’t end up striping and pooling the way I ‘d hoped.  Mind you, it’s no fault of the yarn – the yarn is gorgeous – but more that I failed to predict how the colors would behave.

And, really, it’s not even that there isn’t sufficient yarn.  The nearly-completed sock is a bit on the big side.  It’s a little loose, the instep is a little big, and the whole thing could be snugged up, which would result in plenty of yarn for a lovely pair of socks.  My poor planning as brought me here, nothing else.

And so now I face the choice: do I rip back the finished sock and redo the whole thing with a better fit, or do I rip it out and dedicate this lovely yarn to a worthy pattern and let my poorly-conceived pattern die a dignified death?  I have to say, the blush has faded a bit from the rose, as far as the pattern goes.  I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, it’s just…bleh.

I think I just answered my own question, didn’t I?

I’ve been living in Colorado for twelve years now, so seeing this out my window on October 29th doesn’t surprise me.

Really, the only surprising thing is that it came two days early – usually, we get our first measurable snow of the season on Halloween.

Of course, this one was a bit more measurable than our usual October snows – the news says we got about two feet out here, and four in the foothills.  It started snowing Tuesday night, and peeking out the window at 9:30 on Thursday, it looks like it has finally stopped.

So, yeah, that’s been fun.  I did manage to make it to work and back yesterday, and while the roads weren’t great, they weren’t terrible either.  This morning, on the other hand, I made it one exit down the freeway before I turned around and came home.  The highway was all snowpack and terror, with the sun still down and the snow still falling, and I am neither a Colorado native nor out of my goddamned mind.  I love my job, I love my boss, but there was no way in hell I was driving to work today.  I called my awesome, awesome boss and said simply “I can’t do this.”  She told me to get home safely and not worry about it.

I did worry about it, though.  Of course I did.  I hate being a wuss.  I hate letting people down, and not doing what I say I’m going to do.  I hate knowing that I have a lot of work to do, and not being able to get in to do it.  I know that I made the right decision for me, but I still feel bad about it.

But what’s done is done.  I tried to enjoy a nice day of lounging around in bed despite my guilt, and now get to look forward to a lovely (if slightly damp, since all the snow will be melting in the 52° weather we’ll be having on Saturday) Halloween weekend.  We haven’t any grand plans this year – (relative) poverty hits hard, and heavy costuming is a luxury that has fallen by the wayside – but we do have dinner reservations and tickets to go sing and dance and watch a gorgeous man prance around in a corset.  And yes, of course, we’ll be doing costuming for that, but it’s a much less ambitious project than some of our past efforts.

(*French for “it’s snowing.”  Bradon and I have a habit of pointing out the obvious, in French.)

Saturdays appear to be the weak link in my new plan.  This week I just flat-out forgot.

Okay, that’s not entirely true.  Sometime around 3:00 pm I thought “Oh, yeah, I have to blog today.  I’ll be sure to do that when I finish the Stealth Project.”  Then I knit all day long, finished the Stealth Project in the wee hours of the morning, and went to bed without a second thought.

Sorry about that.  You didn’t really want to hear me talk around the Stealth Project any more anyway.

The good news is that I did get it off the needles.  What’s next, you might ask?

Well, I can’t say for sure, but these arrived in the mail recently.

Every once in a while it occurs to me how odd it is that I get along so well with my parents.

I mean, it’s not all roses and sunshine all the time.  I was once a teenager, after all, with all the angst that implies.  Nonetheless, especially now that I’m older, I get along really well with my parents.  I love them to pieces, and I’m sad that we don’t get to spend more time together.  (Wait until I have a kid…if anything will get my mother to force the move back to Colorado, it will be me breeding.)

My parents head back home tomorrow, so I took the opportunity to spend the day with my mom.  An eighty-minute deep tissue massage, followed by a sushi lunch and then a stop by Olena’s house to snuggle with the world’s most adorable set of twins (my mom really, really loves babies.)

And it was awesome.

And maybe that’s not weird.  Maybe a lot of people have good relationships with their parents…just not anyone I know.

I mean, yeah, I have a few friends who get along with their folks, and the majority of my friends love their parents, but I’m one of the few who actively enjoy spending time with their parents.  It always makes me feel kind of odd…guilty, really…when my friends talk about how their families make them crazy.  I smile and nod and empathize, but it’s not a sensation that I have a lot of experience with – at least, not since I hit my twenties.  I like my parents.  I want to hang out with them.

Anyway, my parents leave at insane o’clock tomorrow morning.  I’ll miss them like crazy, but I can console myself with the incredible amount of knitting time I’ll get tomorrow.  I’ve got to get this stealth project off the needles.

Yanno, it’s hard to blog when:

1. You have no time to knit.
2. Your parents are in town, so you have even less time to knit.
3. What precious little knitting time you squeak in is devoted to a stealth project.

Really, I’m going to get this blogging thing down one of these days.

Things are still pretty awesome, for the most part, but I’m rediscovering how so many hours essentially alone (I don’t have a lot of social interaction at work, nevermind the two hour round trip commute) lets me very much get lost in my own head.  Sometimes that’s a good thing, and sometimes that brings out the crazy.  Sometimes it does both at the same time.  I made a reference recently on Facebook to pressing on bruises to see how much you can get them to hurt, and it really is a lot like that.  I get an idea and I poke it and fidget with it and prod it from all angles to see what it will do.  Like a sore tooth that you can’t quit poking at with your tongue.

Or maybe that’s just me.

(Actually, I know it’s not just me.  Yes, Carrie, when I have real, physical bruises I poke at them.  A lot.  You are not alone.)

Okay, so maybe that whole “blogging on Saturday” thing didn’t work out terribly well this week.  In my defense, I was home and conscious for only about three hours all day, and most of those three hours were spent getting ready to go somewhere else.  Oh, the tragic life of the busy roleplayer.  If it makes you feel any better (and it won’t) I had an awesome day of roleplaying.  A tabletop game during the day where we finished clearing out a dungeon and became Big Damn Heroes™, and an evening live action game where my sexpot Brujah vampire met a lovely new plaything who took her home at the end of the evening.  Yummy.

(For those of you whose eyes glazed over reading that paragraph, I promise that the nerd talk is over.  On to the knitting!)

And, to add to the happy…my parents are in town!  (That’s not sarcasm.  My parents are awesome.)  Which mean that I had the opportunity to finally present my mother with her long-awaited scarf.

(I admit it – I’m weak.  I just couldn’t hold out until Christmas – though I did tell her to be sure to pull out the scarf and pet it on Christmas morning, in lieu of a gift.)

Pattern: Tree Roots Scarf (Ravelry link) by Kristi Holaas

Size Made: About 8” by 50”

Yarn: Dalegarn Baby Ull in lavender

Needles: US 3

Opinions:  This is a lovely, lovely pattern.  The cabling is logical and easy to follow and read once you set it up (I didn’t need the pattern after about half a repeat.  I had a couple questions with the pattern (which is very clearly marked as “A Test Pattern Only,”) and Kristi answered my PM right away (and was very sweet, to boot.)

Mom wanted a pretty little tuck-in scarf, and she seems very pleased with it.  If I were making this pattern for myself (and I very much would) I’d probably make it a little longer, and possibly in a slightly thicker yarn.  This took two skeins of Baby Ull, plus a little extra to finish off the fringe.  I do like the fringe – I think it mirrors the feel of the cabling well – but if I were doing it again I’d make it a longer.  I do think it looks nice as is, however.  (The fringe also reminds me of why I never took up macramé, but that’s neither here nor there.)

All in all, I’m quite happy, and I think Mom is too.

Not that there’s been much.  Between the hectic work days and the busy weekends, I haven’t had much time to sit down with my sticks and string.

Nonetheless, the experimental socks have been growing in fits and starts:

I’m still liking how these are turning out – at this point I think it’s safe to say I’ll be finishing the pair.  I was worried that the “pattern” would get weird at the heel (we all know how colors tend to pool and flash at the heel) but it turned out pretty well – there’s oddness, but I think it turned out nicely.  (Of course, most of the oddness is on the other side of the sock in this picture, but you get the idea.)

So that’s good, too.  In figuring out this whole life/work balance, I’m going to have to work in some time for knitting…not to mention my sadly neglected spinning.  I have this half-washed fleece taking up real estate in my living room, and Bradon’s starting to cast dark looks at it.  I did call Maggie and ask her about the excessive greasiness of the fleece – she suggested more washes with hotter water and more soap, and if that still doesn’t work to call her back and we’ll figure out something.  Of course, I don’t know if that works or not, since I really haven’t touched it since I last posted on the topic…sigh.

So, yeah, speaking of knitting and spinning and what not…I think I’ll go do that.  I have my whole, glorious Friday ahead of me!