the dresser of my dreams

And the Lord did grin. And the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths, and carp and anchovies, and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit-bats...

found it at Apartment Therapy.

I buy lots of things in bags, why?

without preamble or any sort of context

my friend, Adam: Do you buy milk regularly?

Me: Fairly often, I suppose, why?

Adam: Okay. Do you buy it in... a bag?

(I started laughing a lot right about here.)

Adam: You live in Canada, so I must know.



I don't, in fact. I can't drink that much milk by myself before it expires.

future poet laureate

It always gives a little thrill
To learn a brand new knitting skill,
But to not say this would be fibbing:
I greatly dislike corrugated ribbing.

I keep forgetting to title my posts.

Today is a day gloriously free of obligations, which is perfect because it also happens to be the first day of the Secret of the Stole II knit along, which I joined, even though I have previously listed myself as a KAL failure. This time, though, will be different. Really. I mean it. Stop laughing! I have no obligations today, and I have every intention of knitting right through the first chart before the end of the evening.

The Nantucket Jacket is ridiculously close to being finished, and I finished a pair of socks on Tuesday. Unfortunately, my camera's USB cable is somewhat MIA, so you only get to see one sock:



But I think you can imagine what the other sock looks like. I used Knit Picks Essential in the Volcano Twist colorway, and I think it's great yarn, which is good because I got a ton of it for Christmas.

In other news, you know those striped socks I mentioned last time? The idea was completely enchanting for about three hours. Now I don't care. Why, you ask? Because I found something better to do with leftover sock yarn.



Fishies!!! (When faced with digital camera difficulties, a scanner can be very useful.) I got a wee bit obsessed last night. The one you see above is my favourite, knit out of some leftover Trekking XXL. I see a glorious fishy blanket in my future, and am somewhat unreasonably excited about it.

this may say something about me

I'm going to make some striped socks.



They are not going to match at all.

heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeeeee....

there aren't any pictures in this post

Before I actually talk about knitting, I must tell you that this is a special day for me. I hear you asking why. I shall tell you.

Today, Blogger remembered me. Today, Blogger recognized that I had checked that little box on the sign in page that says "Remember me" and actually did it. Maybe it was some sort of test. If you are persistent (or just naively hopeful) enough to click that box eleventy zillion times, even though Blogger never, EVER remembers you, the eleventy zillionth and one time you click it, it grants your wish. Hooray!

Ok. Anyway.

Since today is the first day back to classes, I shall choose today to pout about Christmas break being over. It seems fitting. The total knitting output for the month of December was as follows:

1 lap blanket
1 pair of socks
1 scarf
1 pair of mittens
1 other pair of socks, which I wore today and realized are too big, so they will have to be frogged and reknit

The first four items on that list were Christmas gifts. So, the majority of the knitting in December happened before Christmas, a period during which I was extremely busy. So the question remains: what in the world was I doing for two weeks in which I had no obligations?

Sorry, that sounded really cliffhanger, like I was going to give you some fabulous answer. Wrestling Arctic Musk Oxen! Tap Dancing With Giant Tortoises! Using Capital Letters Inappropriately!

The truth of the matter is, I kept doing things that weren't knitting compatible, like ice skating and sledding (although you shouldn't think for a minute that I didn't try to think of someway to make those activities knitting compatible). There was also a fair amount of sleeping, which, as we all know, is an activity in direct competition with knitting. And, actually, I have this Nantucket Jacket (Interweave Knits, Winter 2006) sitting here that only needs one more sleeve cap and a back, so maybe I've been more productive than I think.

I'll stop rambling today and leave you...well, I was going to leave you with a picture, but Blogger is being stupid. So I'll just...go...awkwardly...

Things that may impede Christmas knitting:

1. Sleeping

2. Jobs

3. Large and insistent lap cats

4. Random excursions to Toronto

5. Super Nintendo

6. Cooking

7. Books that will not stay open by themselves

8. Sub zero weather (impossible to knit outside at the bus stop)

9. Car rides with anyone on your Christmas knitting list

10. Blogging!!!

the yarn must flow

The past three days have been amazingly fabulous for knitting (excepting, of course, this morning, when I thought all my internal organs were trying to escape out my nose and my mouth in the form of greenish yellow goo. But I'm better now). Sunday morning I woke up to the abominable (but rather pretty) snowstorm, and a very irate roommate with a cancelled flight (I kept my personal opinions about beautiful snowstorms to myself). But a snowstorm! A perfect excuse to hide inside, drink hot chocolate, and get cracking on the Christmas knitting (although we did venture briefly out for some shopping. Because we were apparently caught with the crazy.) (You know, I really hate it when people over and misuse parenthetical phrases. I am a filthy hypocrite and will go knit with fun fur to punish myself).

Yesterday I was complaining about the lack of new and exciting movies just sitting around the apartment, and lo and behold my roommate pulls out the special edition director's cut of the TV miniseries Dune and says, "Here, watch this. I'm not taking it home with me." Then she went off on her rescheduled flight and left me alone with the crack. I watched the whole thing, and when it was over I went and found the sequel, Children of Dune, on YouTube. Then I stayed up way too late watching it and woke up this morning with the aforementioned ailment. That, of course, probably had nothing to do with what I was watching or how late I was watching it, but for some reason I am feeling slightly resentful towards the engrossing storyline and the crazy costuming and feel better blaming the miniseries, which makes absolutely no sense, but I don't care. As a brief critical note, however, I must say, the sequel went a bit overboard with the storylines and a bit underboard with the explaining-what-happened. But I watched the whole thing anyway.

Now, this weekend, when I go home, I will most likely rush down to my parents' basement, where I know the Dune series is lurking, and try to read them. Part of me is very excited about it, and the other part fully expects to find them just as uninteresting as I did the other eighty bajillion times I tried to read them. Oh the difficulties I face! I really don't know how I bear it all.

in which I do not loosen up

I started a pair of socks as a Christmas present a couple of weeks ago (Actually, I started about ten things a couple weeks ago, but that's another story). After I knit the first one, I knew I didn't really like knitting the pattern (the way it looks is fine, though), but figured I would slog through the next one, because then I would have a Christmas present finished. Of course, because I'm blogging about it, you must know that my cunning plan has been thwarted. I don't know why, or what I was doing when I knit the first sock, but my gauge is so much tighter in the second sock that the same number of pattern repeats in the leg comes out to nearly three quarters of an inch shorter, and the first sock is about three quarters of an inch wider as well.

I'm frogging both of them. I cannot stand the idea of knitting an entire sock in this pattern again, and if I'm going to stay on the Super-Amazing Christmas Knitting Plan of Doom and Awesomeness (which I wrote on the bus yesterday), then I'm supposed to have this pair of socks done today. So I need something pretty, but uncomplicated, easy to memorize, and no freaking mini cables. Bah.

muuuuah

My dear little bloglet,

I meeeeesed you!!! And now that the craziness is OVER, I will loooooooove you, and give you connnnnnntent, and piiiiiiiiictures, and it will all be so LOVELY!

Affectionately with cheesecake,
Stephanie

you must do what you feel is right

You have run out of hand knit socks to wear. What do you do?

a. Do your laundry.
b. Wear your store bought socks.
c. Knit faster.

cable brim hat

Yarn: 200-ish yards of worsted weight wool
Needle: 5mm DPNs and circular

Pattern:

Pull out your stitch dictionary of choice (I confess, I am deeply enthralled by Barbara Walker) and pick out a cable pattern that looks like it will knit up to be 2-3 inches wide. Add two stitches to either side of the motif and do the following:

RS: slip 2 stiches, knit cable pattern, slip 1, purl 1
WS: slip 1, purl 1, knit cable pattern, purl 2

The extra stitches and all the slipping give you an even, nice-looking edge while also creating a border for your cable motif.

Knit the cable motif until it is however long you want your hat brim to be, and sew the cast off edge to the cast on edge. I tried to be clever and start with a provisional cast on and then graft the two ends together, but it didn't turn out that well. This is probably because I didn't feel like thinking that hard about it when the time came, and not because it can't be done, or that it would be particularly difficult. Do whatever you want.

Then, with your circular needle, pick up stitches all the way around the brim you just made. If you need more stitches than you picked up, increase in the next round. Knit the rest of the hat like you would any other hat (for advice on this I highly recommend the section on hats in Knitting Rules by that other Stephanie).

Cast off, weave in ends, feel clever. The end!

a small update

What I have been doing for the past month:
1. going to school
2. working
3. sleeping
4. eating
5. knitting like mad

Sadly, blogging is not on the list, although I could add "thinking about blogging," but if I start including things I have been thinking about to the general list of what I have been doing, that list is going to get pretty un-concise pretty quickly.

But, I have been knitting. I finished a pair of socks this week, but didn't take a photo, and now they're in the wash. You might never get to see them, because my ability to take photos of my finished objects is sketchy, at best. But rest assured they are very pretty, and I, like many before me, have discovered the delights of Trekking XXL.

Now I am going to contradict myself and show you a picture of another finished object I finished this week:



I made the pattern up, but I'll do a seperate post explaining what I did, because I thought it was fun, because I am a nerd. Also, I seem to be all about the almost-run on sentences today. Strunk and White are going to kill me in my sleep.

Currently, I am completely addicted to this:



Which is, of course, The Hemlock Ring Blanket. I am completely taken by this doily blanket business and have been perusing all sorts of old doily patterns, making grand plans for at least fifty lap blankets. And actually, this current one is knitting up pretty fast, so I might get through a couple before I get sick of the idea. You never know. Stop snickering.

Other than that, I started a pair of fuzzy feet for mindless bus/boring classes knitting. Actually, in the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I'm really not knitting "fuzzy feet." I just saw the pattern while perusing knitty and decided that I would make giant socks and felt them. I've never felted anything before, but it doesn't seem that difficult. (On second thought, I should not tempt fate by saying things like that.)

what a dream I had

You are held captive by a mad scientist in a dimly lit castle decorated like a cluttered, late 1970s rec room. As you enter the main drawing room, you suddenly spot what seems to be a basilisk. Horrified, you squeeze your eyes tight shut, until the mad scientist says to you, "Have no fear, my prisoner. The crocheted basilisk is not dangerous. It is the knitted basilisk you must be afraid of."

If this ever happens in your dreams, you can probably be sure of one or more of the following:

1. You spend way too much time knitting.
2. You have read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets recently, or too many times. Or both.
3. You saw this in a library book:



And were duly frightened. You find out later in the book that the dear snake pictured above is, in fact, Crispin the Crocheted Cobra, but I must confess upon first sighting I was more inclined to think of him as "Sammy the Serpent of Satan". But that's just me.

And yes, I really had that dream.

is this thing on?

To start, a confession: I've been back around normal, English internet services for a little over two weeks now. I've been meaning to post, I swear, but wasn't sure what to say or how to begin. Finally, I decided it didn't really matter, and that I'd better post something before school starts (on Thursday!) or I never would.

So hi. What's up? How was your summer? Eventually, hopefully, I'll post about Quebec, and the knitting that went on, and the yarn-buying that went on, and the French-speaking that went on, but not today, mostly because at the moment I'm more in the mood to get a post up than to sift through pictures.

The past couple of weeks I have, among other things, been cleaning out the stash. Don't let the time allotment fool you: my stash is not particularly large, I'm just a slow organizer, and when I'm stumped by something (in this case, "Where am I going to put all of this yarn?!!"), I tend to let it stew for a bit before going back to it. I'm pretty much finished, and I did get rid of a lot of yarn (ok, actually, the yarn is in a big bag in my front hall closet, waiting to be mailed off to Interim House). I decided to keep only the yarn I have a very specific plan for; I've found that otherwise yarn is a source of some anxiety for me.

However, I still have a bit more yarn than I really have room for in my apartment, so I've done two things: planned my Christmas knitting around what is currently in the stash, and made some rules.

I won't go into details on the Christmas knitting, since I think some of the intended recipients stop by here on occasion, but the rules are as follows:

1. Finish all Christmas knitting the stash currently has yarn for before buying new yarn for Christmas knitting the stash cannot accommodate.

2. If Christmas knitting gets extremely boring, work on a UFO.

3. Avoid Value Village at all costs.

Now, to be frank, I'm pretty sure rule three is going to get broken a lot, but it's ok, I have back up Value Village rules too:

1. I do not need any more random acrylic for the Weasley blanket.

2. Yarn may be bought only if it meets one of the following conditions:
a. it is pretty, not 100% acrylic, and enough to make a scarf
b. it is sock yarn
c. it is fabulous and doesn't meet condition a or b

The Value Village rules exist mostly because I sometimes lose all reasoning abilities in the face of a good deal; for example, the ability to determine what a good deal really is. Twelve balls of Paton's Kroy Socks for seven dollars? That's a good deal. A bag full of random yarn with questionable fiber content in dated colors? Probably not a good deal, even if it is only two dollars.

One last thing: I got my invite to Ravlery while I was in Quebec, and this past week I've finally had a chance to properly play around with it. It is every bit as great as everyone says it is, and a definite threat to my ability to not procrastinate this year. Ah well.

signing off

Tomorrow morning I'm leaving for Quebec, and I'll be gone for five weeks. I've heard that internet access where I'm going is limited, and at any rate I've been such a slacker about blogging lately that I doubt I would post anything with such distractions as "having to speak French all the time even though my French is atrocious" and...well...actually that's the only distraction I can think of right now. I am hoping that the break will make me more interested in the blog when I get back.

Later gators.

score!

I adore Value Village, especially when I can buy 12 (TWELVE!) balls of Paton's Kroy Socks for $7.00.



I must confess that I did a fair bit of maniacal laughing when I found it, and then proceeded to walk around the rest of the store with the bag clutched to my chest (I didn't think it was safe in the cart. Admit it, you would have done the same thing.). Looking back, I suppose my behaviour might have been embarrassing my friend, but she was nice enough not to mention it.

sorry

I am being such a blog slacker. My sincere apologies. Since my last post I have knit two socks, one washcloth, and ten Weasley squares (I have 96. I need 140.) I also moved into a new apartment, and that was about as much fun as you think it is. Right now I'm going to go knit more squares, and maybe I'll have this blanket finished before September.

c is for cookie

Reasons Why Eating Cookies All Morning is a Good Idea

1. Cookies are very tasty.
2. It's easier than going grocery shopping.
3. It's too hot to cook.
4. They go well with milk.
5. The cat doesn't try to eat them too.
6. Did I mention it's too hot to cook?

Reasons Why Eating Cookies All Morning is a Bad Idea

1. You can't eat cookies and knit at the same time.
2. Heat makes me sick. Excessive amounts of sugar make me sick. They will not cancel each other out.
3. There'll be less cookies to eat all evening.
4. Have I told you how nauseous I feel right now?
5. I'll feel obligated to vacuum later.
6. Seriously. How old am I?

and by 24 hours I obviously meant 2

pattern: Jaywalker Socks
yarn: Sockotta by Plymouth Yarn (45% cotton, 40% superwash wool, 15% nylon)

I must confess I liked the yarn better in the ball than I did knitted up, and was a bit irritated by the weird flashing thing it did in the second sock after behaving so nicely in the first, but I do think the Jaywalker pattern used the yarn best. I first started making just plain stockinette socks with it, and it did that weird flashing thing all over. I don't really mind the zig zags, but the colors of this yarn made it look like a kindergarten classroom threw up all over it.