Blimey

Why do I keep forgetting that one skein of Glacier is not enough to knit a pair of men's socks?


Oh well. It's my last skein of the stuff. I won't have this particular problem again.

I made these using the heel method from Fleegle's pattern. I love this heel. It's beautiful and it's easy. I want to experiment to see if the fit is ruined by making the heel base a tad wider -- it's a little too pointy for my taste, but that's a minor quibble.

Not professional

Got very helpful response from XRX. They understand that it's a fuzzy definition and people can be confused. And they drew what is, in my opinion, a very clear and reasonable line:

A simple rule (that we think is fair) is that if you haven’t made more than $500 (a prize amount for aspecific amateur category in the Think Outside The SOX contest) then you are still an amateur. If you teach the occasional class here and there, you may or may not be considered an amateur – but that would really depend on how much you teach and how much money you've made from teaching. In most cases, we find that knitting and crochet instructors – paid to teach others – really are professionals; at least in the eyes of their students. Again… we try to use the $500 rule here as well.

I haven't made anywhere near $500. So I'm free to enter as an amateur.

Soon you will all tremble before the awesome spectacle of my evil sock designs.

Professional?

XRX is having a sock design context, Think Outside the SOX. I'm intrigued by a couple of the contest categories: Bearfoot's "Not Cuff Down," and Universal Yarn's "Most Masculine." (Shut up. My knitting is very butch.)

The hitch is that it's an amateur contest. The rules say, "If you are paid to knit or crochet, teach knitting or crochet, design knit or crochet garments, or sell yarn, you are defined as a professional." While I can't get into TNNA because I've never published a design, and in most cases I haven't earned enough money to pay for the gas I use driving to class, the truth is I have been paid to teach.

At the risk of sounding Clintonian, whether I'm a professional might depend on what your definitions of "are" are. On occasion, I have been paid to teach knitting, but this is an irregular thing; I do not think that I am paid to teach knitting.

What do you think? I accept that I'm an evil sock genius, but am I a professional evil sock genius?

Memed

Cat tagged me; I'm It.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

In 1998, my Ph.D. exams expired, and even if I'd wanted to write my dissertation, I would have had to retake the exams. I was even now on my second job since abandoning academia, working as the GHPL Technology Coordinator. It was the first summer reading club since 1992 that I hadn't created. Ten years ago this month Mike and I moved into our current place.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

• Take webinar on library uses for Flickr and Twitter
• Meet with Friends of the Library about book sale planning
• Be Dewey D. Chipmunk at summer reading kick-off in Powell
• Print syllabus for sock class that starts tomorrow
• Finish this model sock

3. Snacks I enjoy:

• Wavy Lays
• Pretzel Nuggets
• Ice Cream
• Popcorn with Parmesan cheese
  

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

• Hire staff, especially financial manager
• Erase all debt in family (family defined broadly)
• Buy a home. Or two. A place in Manhattan, perhaps.
• Probably what others say they would do: establish foundation
  

5. Places I have lived:

• Ohio (Mt. Vernon, Kent, Columbus, Upper Arlington)
• Mérida

6. Peeps I want to know more about:

Sorry, this seed fell upon the rock, sprung up, and withered away because it has no moisture. But if the wind picks it up and finds root in your good ground, have at it.

Center-pull Ball Holder

I decided that I better work both sleeves of the Wash Sweater at once. That way, if I stall out again, I won't have to figure out how to make the second sleeve match the first: each decision I make I will make for both sleeves simultaneously so they'll match without any extra pain and effort.

I also decided to work from the inside and outside of a center-pull ball, so that the inconsistent dye jobs on the yarn will at least match sleeve to sleeve. But my yarn was tangling. After a couple attempts to mangle a wire hanger into shape, I came up with this:

Something heavier would probably work better to keep the whole thing place, but this does seem to be doing the job: the ball doesn't flip around, and I can keep the strands from winding around each other.

Wash Sweater, back on track?

I worked on the Wash Sweater for about a month, then stalled out two months ago, when it came time to plan the sleeves. Not that the sleeves will be hard, but some decisions are required, and whenever I tried to summon up the energy to make these decisions, I was struck by this stark fact:

I don't have enough yarn to finish.

I got the yarn from Mary who was stash-busting. She got it from Handpaintedyarn.com. When I started the project, there was no more to be found in this color ("Sea Foam," which you might
think would be green but actually is the dirty beige color that real sea foam tends to be). I thought I might try to find something close, then dye whole garment when it was finished. But even better: when I went to the site this morning, there were three skeins to be had.

So. Back at it. I've been keeping my planning notes in a Google document, which I just made public today, so you can follow along if you want.

Meanwhile, Dodger reminds me that, if I decide not to finish, he'd be perfectly happy to make use of the work-in-progress.