The end of sweater constipation?

My company inspired Cat to have nightmares about bizarre games of word hockey. But we had a good dinner, I learned about the cast of characters in her son's comic strip "Bucktooth Larry" (great politics for a 12-year-old), and we knitted. I have again picked up the sweater for Mike, again figured out where the hell I am on it, and made visible progress.


I'm almost done with the back. A few more rows and I'll do some shaping for the shoulder seam, then I'll flip it over and work the chest. The sleeves are all finished, and ready to attach. (If you're just joining me, this is the sweater I started in November 2004. It's the "Wondrous Woven Cables" sweater from Arans & Celtics, knit in "Blueberry" Jo Sharp Tweed).

Weapons Check

The arsenal for Sock Wars 2006 will be DK yarn and size 5 needles. I'm not the least bit surprised, but it seems to be causing some consternation in comment threads and the Sock Wars forum.

I immediately thought of my stash of Philosopher's Wool that has utterly failed to become a sweater. (It was a valuable moment of self-discovery: I like knitting textures; I don't like knitting colors). I had some work-related podcast listening to do, so I cast-on for a gauge tube. After work, I finished the tube, cut it in half, and measured.

Stitches per inch is good; I'm right abound 22. I'm coming up short for rows per inch though -- Yarn Monkey says 30, I have 34, but I don't expect that to be a problem. (You know, that was my gauge problem with the Wild Things crown. There are tight knitters and loose knitters; I wonder if I'm a "short" knitter?)

Nevertheless, this yarn should do nicely for the Sock of Doom.

Book List Meme

Something is up with Blogger RSS feeds, so it's days later that I noticed Ken tagged me.

1. One book that changed your life: The Demon-Haunted World: science as a candle in the dark by Carl Sagan. My affection for superstition used to extend beyond liberal tolerance, into a New Age-y view that everyone's beliefs were real in their own worlds. Sagan showed a way to reject magical thinking, to declare that some things are just wrong, and to still respond in wonder to the miracle of existence. And he was even somewhat respectful about it.
   
   
2. One book that you've read more than once: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. So should you.
   
   
3. One book you'd want on a desert island: I'm tempted to say SAS Survival Handbook: how to survive in the wild, in any climate, on land or at sea by John Wiseman, but I'd probably be sorry and wish instead that I had an edition of the complete works of Shakespeare.
   
   
4. One book that made you laugh: Any David Sedaris. Any Molly Ivins. I laughed so hard at Me Talk Pretty One Day in LaGuardia Airport that it was embarrassing. Even better on audiobook.
   
   
5. One book that made you cry: The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.
   
   
6. One book that you wish had been written: How the Republicans Will Steal the 2000 Election, and Lead Us into War in the Middle East (c1999).
   
   
7. One book that you wish had never been written: There is nothing that I wish had not been written. There are things that I wish had not had the impact they've had. But if I had to pick one thing in particular, I'd say Leviticus.
   
   
8. One book you're currently reading: The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde. Fractured fairy tales for adults, complete with acrobatic puns. Fforde gives into meta-narrative witticisms maybe a bit too easily, but I love it.
   
   
9. One book you've been meaning to read: Skybreaker, Kenneth Oppel's sequel to Airborn (which I loved) has been next to the bed all year. I was really looking forward to it, but I couldn't get into it, so I set it aside, waiting to be in a better mood.
   
   
10. Tag 6 people: I agree with TrickyTricot -- this is the blog equivalent of a chain letter, and I'm not going to impose it on someone unwillingly (still, Ken, I was flattered that you picked me...residual "picked last for sports teams" neurosis). I'd be interested in the answers of anyone who cares to read my blog; I only know who some of you are, so consider yourself invited to respond, and leave me a comment so I know to go look at it.
    

Craftr: My latest million dollar idea

This morning, after a couple Google queries, I figured out how to add a LibraryThing widget to my sidebar. I've had a LibraryThing account since last November, but I haven't really done anything with it: the retrocon work is just overwhelming. So earlier today I added the three books I'm reading or listening to now, removed the dozen test titles I'd put in over the past year, and pasted the Javascript widget where I wanted it on the page. This might inspire me to keep working in LibraryThing.

It would be cool if there was something similar for knitting, some Web 2.0 community site that let crafters create accounts, record details about their projects, upload pictures, allow tagging and commenting. Simple RSS widgets could be dropped into blogs (automatically generating nifty percentage bars -- this whole idea occurred to me because I can't make this code work in Blogger Beta, and even if I could, the prospect of editing HTML code every time I want to update my "On the Needles" sidebar makes me want to scrap the whole thing). I see mash-up possibilities, with Flickr of course, but maybe even Etsy.

What do you all think, Gentle Readers? Could one "Craftr" (or "CraftThing") site cover the needs of knittrs, weavrs, spinnrs, etc.? Just the yarn crafts, or could it be expanded out to embrace quiltrs and beadrs? Maybe each separate craft would feature-creep it in too many directions? As a knittr, I think I'd want the project database to include pattern source, start and end dates, materials, and progress indicator. Notes and journal fields would be important, and specifics (like dye lots, gauges, needles, etc.) could be recorded there.

Cat's "525,600 Minutes" Meme

Cat, contemplative with the start of a new school year, challenges her blog readers to answer these five questions:

1. How old do you think you'll live to be?
   
   For the longest time, I thought it would be 42, which happens in just over 3 months now. But a stress test last year turned out just fine, so now I don't know. I don't excercise enough, and I'm excessively fond of ice cream and fast food cheeseburgers. I probably will have my first heart attack sometime in the next 20 years, but I plan to survive it. I'd prefer to die in some wildly improbable, cataclysmic event -- kidnapped by aliens; infected with Andromeda Strain; crushed by Godzilla. More likely, it will be a car accident. Let's say 77?
   
   
2. How do you measure the passing of time in your own life?
   
   I watch for the signs -- in both nature and culture -- for the cycle of seasonal change. The first lightning bug, the first frost. Dandelions poking up around Imbolc, ripe peaches around Lughnasadh. Orion lingering in the autumn morning sky. Graeter's Cherry Chip ice cream in February, Girl Scout Thin Mints in March. Soon the starlings will begin to practice their formations in the evening sky, and the new fall shows will air on TV. I look out into the near future for milestones, which speed up or slow down the passage of time, depending on how much I anticipate or dread them.
   
   
3. What would constitute "the perfectly lived day" for you?
   
   A day lived mindfully, open to what comes, delighting in it. Ideally, it would be a bright, cool day, maybe in the fall. A light hike in a wooded area would be nice, maybe with few others around. I would talk with friends and family, probably laugh a lot. We'd have a tasty lunch. (But Cat's idea of starring in a Broadway show and finishing the day off with fabulous, crazy monkey sex would be OK too). At night I would dream that I could breath underwater.
   
   
4. If you could pick one age or one year that you could live over and over, which one would you pick? Why?
   
   I had a friend who used to say with inappropriate irony, "It's true that I get better looking with each passing day." Me too: handsomer, smarter, wiser...more talented and fabulous as time marches on. (Humbler too). So I tend not to pine over the past; my best times have been the beginnings of something new. When I was fourteen, I promised myself that I would always remember and appreciate the complicated joy and pain of that transition from child into something else. My first year of college, my first year of grad school...all wonderful times. The early 90's were the best. I had found love, I was surrounded by smart friends. But still, I don't think I'd go back. I'd rather take what comes.
   
   And Slaughterhouse-Five had a fairly profound effect on my worldview. I think moments in time are eternal, and our perception of "now" is an illusion. Like Billy Pilgrim, we are all unstuck in time, if only we have the presence of mind to notice it. Every day is Groundhog Day.
   
   
5. If you knew you were going to die in a year, what would you do in your final days?
   
   I expect "Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance," not necessarily in that order. I'd want to say goodbye. Or I think I would, until it became such a burden -- creating moments, bumming people out. I'd probably just get exhausted with it all. Then bitter about all the obligations a fore-knowledge of your own death imposes on you. I might undertake a project to hide little meaningful things everywhere, so that people would unexpectedly be reminded of me in future years.
   

Math anxiety

I'm about a month behind listening to Cast-On episodes, so I only recently heard Brenda kvell about the Widdershins sock pattern. I tried it before -- it was one of the aborted projects that I tried to do with the Handpainted Opal -- but didn't like it. Still, I know that Brenda has some of the same "sock issues" that I do, and if she says this may be the Holy Grail of sock patterns, then maybe, I thought, I should give it another shot. Other bloggers mentioned that the designer had written on her own blog about how to adapt the pattern to other stitch counts.

I thought I had sufficient math skills for my knitting (I whined to my GLBT-Knitsibs). I thought they were more than sufficient, actually. (Hey, I do Kakuro puzzles in bed).

And I was with the designer up to a point. I get that, if you have a 54 st circumference, you do gusset increases until you have 74 st: 27 for the instep, 14 each for the gussets, and 19 heel stitches. But I could not for the life of me figure out where that 19 comes from. The designer said:

For a round heel with a flap n stitches wide, the number of stitches below the heel turning is h(n) where h(k) = k for k.

Uh...what? I get what "h" is. I know I'm solving for "n." But what the hell is "k?"

The people on GLBT-Knit came through, leading me to realize that it's not about the math: there just need to be enough heel stitches to cover the bottom of the heel, whatever my gauge happens to be. So I made some quick notes and set off.

I leached the color out of this picture because these socks will be a gift, and the recipient sometimes reads my blog. I have to admit, except for the drama of the multi-variable equation above, the Widdershins construction is pretty cool. It reminds me a lot of Judy Gibson's You're Putting Me On socks. And I had an important sizing epiphany: a short-row heel would "begin" about halfway into your gusset increases. So with an L measurement of 6.5 inches, I'd want to begin my increases 15 rounds before I reached 6.5 (or around 5 inches, with my current gauge). Significantly more thinking is required than with my usual sock pattern, but I think this sock may be more comfortable for people with higher insteps. I think _____ is really going to like it.

The Stash Fairy

She signs her emails "lc2" and those who follow her blog (and you should: it's poetic, smart, spirited, and different, a glimpse into how one goes about surviving cancer) may know her as "rcclive," but I think I'm going to start calling her the Stash Fairy.

With the gift of a single skein of Bearfoot back in May 2004, she reawakened my dormant sock knitting (which now occupies so much of this blog). The gift sent me to The Stitch Stops Here in search of more of this marvelous stuff, and ensured that my generally stash-free existence was at an end, not to mention all the money I've blown on Addi Turbos.

I had lunch with her Friday, when she layered upon me several marvelous gifts: 10 balls of blue baby cashmere, some purple cotton Sockotta (mom will be happy), Trekking XXL, Trekking Tweed, and Trekking Color. She threw in a sock pattern with an interesting cabled/broken rib design, and a blue t-shirt that says "I just came in to pet the yarn." All of this in a canvas DRA Taos bag, which for a library automation geek like me is perhaps the coolest part of the gift. I want lunch with her to be a regular thing, as long as she promises to stop bringing me stuff (bad fairy!) and takes naps before starting for home. I was horrified to read how much our lunch had tired her out.

Oh, the picture? It's that first skein of Bearfoot, the first pair of socks I made two-at-once on two circs (toe-up, naturally). The cuff design is from Stash Fairy's own sock pattern, called "Twirly Toes."

When One Cannot Invent

Years ago, I cracked open a fortune cookie to find this pointed comment: "When one cannot invent, one must at least improve."

See, I'm really not all that creative. I get flashes of inspiration, but they're usually just a recognition that something someone else has done is cool. I don't write stories because all I would produce would be crappy fan fiction with humiliatingly obvious Mary Sues: the visiting American professor at Hogwarts, the librarian that Harry Dresden turns to for Internet research, any number of guest X-men. My knitting kind of feeds into this: I don't write patterns, but I do experiment with substitute techniques: working in the round instead of flat, creating the object backwards like a top-down hat or toe-up sock, and so on.

All of which is to say, Gentle Readers, that I'm tinkering with my blog, adding stuff to the sidebar, and I'll probably be stealing things I like from your blogs. Like that nifty "On The Needles" widget I see out there (Ken is doing it on Blogger, so there must be a way). I've always been envious of people with Movable Type blogs with the plug-ins that show what they're reading or listening to, and I hope that the new Blogger has something similar. I'm trying to find some way, with minimal or no effort, to recreate in my sidebar the earliest days of this blog.

Matt's Gigantic Balls

[Apologies to those of you who read this through Bloglines or other RSS readers. I upgraded to the new Blogger Beta, and that seems to have republished my posts. Didn't mean to spam your aggregators.]

Hung out for a good chunk of Saturday at the Merc (story on Randy's blog) where I snapped this picture with my crappy camera phone:


That's Matt, showing off his enormous balls. Matt's knitting a sweater from mop cotton. Seriously, that is some gigantic yarn. His gauge is like 1.5 stitches per inch. The sweater is going to weigh a ton, and when it's wet I'm pretty sure Gus (did I get that name right?) will be immobilized. But it looks cool. I want one.

Great day; lot of laughing.

You must talk about Sock Wars

Yarn Monkey reports that, as of Tuesday, there are 400 sock warriors registered worldwide.

I am ridiculously excited about this. It appears that I am planning the whole fall season around Sock Wars. Craftsman Hill has asked me to teach my toe-up socks class (or the "Steep Learning Curve" socks, as I call them), and I haven't confirmed because I'm worried about it cutting into my Sock Wars time. I'd like to go to Chicago for the weekend -- see Altar Boyz and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, catch a taping of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, maybe stalk Franklin and Dolores -- but what about my mission? Sock Wars will end on Thanksgiving, when I'm on vacation in Maine. Will I have enough stash to keep myself alive? Will there be a FedEx station nearby where I can launch my attacks against my targets?

On the Sock Wars Forum, I read a plaintive message from a sock newbie looking for helpful instructional videos because she didn't know anyone in central Ohio who knits. I decided that Cat and I should help her out. In fact...

All central Ohio knitters should form a Sock Warriors' Guild

...a geographical alliance of knitters, a cabal of sock-making ninja, banding together to encourage and support our own in this brutal battle. The experienced and seasoned will train the fresh recruits, help fix their dropped stitches, guide them through the first turning of their heels. But we should all be on guard, for in the end, each of us is in it for himself, and one of the Guild may be the assassin assigned to you.

(I was going to create a Meetup.com site, but it hardly seems worth the money. So if you're interested, leave a comment or send me an email, yarmando at gmail dot com).

Handpainted Opal

I've made four or five attempts to do something with the gorgeous, handpainted Opal which I found marked down at Quiltessentials back when Mel took me there. I'm wondering if the frog and toad-like colors are encouraging my tendency to repeatedly frog it.

My first pass at it had too loose a gauge, so I went down a needle size. I didn't like the star toe, so I started again. I tried to experiment with gusset-style increases before the short-row heel, but I hated the way it looked, so I frogged back to make a normal heel.

By the way, I was working on this gusset experiment while watching High School Musical, so I associate the construction technique with that experience. Since I never want to watch the movie again, I wonder if I'll ever want to try this experiment again. Does this happen to other knitters, or am I just weird? I associate DNA cables with Kismet, the Shell Lace Pattern with Veronica Mars, and countless other connections, most of which I can't bring to mind unless I'm actually knitting the pattern.

Anyway, I think I've finally figured out what kind of socks this yarn wants to be, and whom it wants to be for.

Making socks that fit

One of the reasons I love knitting socks is because it's fairly easy to make them fit. You just need two important measurements: the circumference (C) of the widest part of the ball of the foot, and the length (L) from the tip of the longest toe to the center of the ankle. I sometimes have a hard time explaining to people the L measurement, so here's the illustration from the sock scriptures, Simple Socks: Plain and Fancy.

To get the L measurement, the author says, "I place a ruler on the floor at the inside edge of the foot, with the person seated and their foot resting lightly on the floor." It can be handy to know the circumference of the ankle, but that's usually somewhere close to the C measurement.

I also like making socks because nearly everyone likes them and can stand to have many pairs. How many hats, scarves, and mittens does one person really need? Sweaters take too long. And don't even talk to me about afghans, shawls, and lace.

And you don't really need to have a recipient in mind when you start a new sock. You can let the pattern and the yarn take you where it wants, and you end up with what I call "Cinderella Socks" -- whomever they fit, gets them.

Infidel

It's been too hot to blog. Franklin and Harlot have managed to write screamingly funny posts about the heat. I'm in awe of their stamina, not to mention their wit and charm.

And I've been busy. I've been trying to make time the past couple weeks to help my aunt move. This gave me an opportunity last month to drive around my hometown in the Big Atheist Truck.


Isn't that tacky? A total violation of my "one bumper sticker" rule. But only one of those bumper stickers -- "No Special Rights for Christians" -- would I probably not put on my own car. (I would wear it on a t-shirt, however). And I adore the license plate. I'd like this one for myself...

...but I know it would never get approval. (I'm told the only way my friend got HEATHEN approved was by telling them it was "Heat Hen.") Besides, "infidel" doesn't mean what it should mean. It should mean "unbeliever" generically, but instead its more common meaning is "non-Muslim." I'm not anti-Muslim. I'm not even anti-Christian. I am for worldviews that do not require a belief in the supernatural as the foundation for ethics.

No interesting knitting to report. Almost done with the cool cotton socks (working them one at a time, since the Sockotta balls tangle too much when you work from both ends). I was trying to do wrapped short rows with the heel and get the lovely results I see in other people's work. But my results just aren't as neat, tight, and tidy. Still, it's a perfectly acceptable sock. And the light, cotton yarn and small project size is perfect in this weather.

Are YOU ready for Sock Wars 2006?

My freshman year in college, guys in my dorm played a game they called "Killer." (Or maybe it was "Assassin?") Participants were given a target they had to get before they themselves were gotten -- shot with a squirt gun, poisoned by sugar or salt in a drink, throats slashed/marked with a marker, etc. Points were awarded for creativity, deducted for getting caught. I was the cause of deducted points -- an innocent bystander hit by the shrapnel of a water balloon grenade.

I wasn't interested in playing, but I am interested in Yarn Monkey's Sock Wars. Sign up before September 8, and on September 22 you'll be mailed a sock pattern and information about your target. You win by completing and mailing socks to your victim, but all the while you are someone else's target. You now take up your victim's mission, with her work in progress as your next weapon. A month later, the last one standing gets swag; everyone else gets the pair of socks that took them out of the game.

I have a knitted gift project that could interfere with my participation, but still, this sounds like a fun distraction. If I'm the one assigned to knit socks for Mel's size 13 feet, then gauge rules be damned: I'm using thick yarn.

Halfdome, Topdown

I finished the crown on my top-down version of the halfdome cap.

And I've learned something: increases do not look the same as decreases. This was probably always perfectly obvious to everyone else, but my reading of Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top led me to believe otherwise. I can see where it sort of looks raglan-ish, but it's just not as attractive as the bottom-up version. Still, the advantages of not running out of color before finishing the top outweigh the beauty of the raglan decreases, if you ask me.

Apartment renovation update:
Molding is complete in the bathroom. Kitchen ceiling has been painted and the broken plastic light panels have been replaced. I'm sure my designated knitting contractor is correct and the whole thing needs more major repair, but it's an apartment, and up to the property managers and owners to decide how much work to do.

I can live with this

My fears of a patchwork bathroom were mounting. I mean, look at the linoleum around the sink


But the floor was put down today, and while all the pieces are indeed utterly dissimilar, there's a general neutrality to it all. I can cope.

There are a few small bits left to finish (moulding isn't complete all around the floor), and the kitchen ceiling is still damp, which is suspicious, since we haven't taken a shower here all week. I mean, that was the problem that started us off on this little renovation adventure. Hopefully soon, we can put all this behind us, and my blog can return to more details of what I'm knitting and more complaints about identity politics.

Shower Construction, Day Three

Progress on Wednesday: the linoleum is gone from the floor and repairs have started on the wood beneath. Some marble panels have been installed in the shower.

I'm starting to worry about a patchwork bathroom, with shower, sink, wall tile, paint, and floor all failing to match in any recognizable way. I'll get over it. It's just a bathroom. The marble panels in the shower really do look nice.

However, I seem to be missing a tube of Elidel cream. I can't imagine why the workers would take it, but it's not where I left it the night before.

After snapping the above photos, I took off for XY Night at the Merc. Mine were the only Y chromosomes to make an appearance however. Still, good conversation with the Y-deprived, I finished off the cap, and started some seaman-style neck-ribbing on the Obey Giant scarf.

Shower Construction, Day Two

Significant progress on our bathroom repairs Monday afternoon, when workmen ripped out the tile and replaced the mildewed wallboard behind it. They had just finished when I arrived home.

I overhead one of them say, "I'm going to call in sick tomorrow; stay out of the heat." Sure enough, nothing seemed to happen Tuesday. Mike and I are showering in a vacant unit elsewhere in the complex, which is inconvenient but a fun little adventure. Reminds me of dorm life, as I walk over to the other apartment, wearing my flip-flops and carrying a shower bucket and a towel. Mike lacks this nostalgic memory; I don't think he's finding the same enjoyment I am. (There's a weird feeling of doing something almost illicit -- slipping into another apartment and doing something as intimate as bathing).

More updates as events warrant.

What's that smell?

This is turning out to be the summer of disagreeable odors.

About 10 days ago, Mike surprised a skunk one night when he was taking the trash out. In the darkness, he didn't notice the animal or see what it was, only that it looked like a puppy that was "moving funny." It was probably stomping in warning. He dashed off when the tail went up and he saw the white flash, but it was too late.

I'm enormously grateful for the Internet, which provided an effective recipe for musk removal. Tomato juice, all sites seem to agree, doesn't really do it; you need hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dishwashing liquid.

I'm still finding some lingering contamination in the house (the towels Mike used after showering, the t-shirt I wore to bed that night, the small pillows we use in place of teddy bears), but generally the musk is gone from the house. Just in time for new and different bad smells.

I'm pretty sensitive to mildew. It's quite a battle in our bathroom, because a few years ago we had a leak that the landlords didn't repair -- just sealed it over, trapping moisture behind the tile. The new landlords are putting some energy into fixing the problem, but this involves extensive repair on our kitchen ceiling and a powerful, industrial fan blowing into the bathroom plumbing access panel (which happens to be on the wall by my side of the bed). Happily, Loratadine/Claritin handles my mildew allergies as well as it does hayfever. We won't be able to use our shower next week, but the inconvenience is a small price to pay for getting this problem taken care of.

Knitting reports:

I apparently dropped a stitch at the heel join in Mom's purple fib socks. That's enough of a problem area on socks even without mistakes, so I frogged back to really fix it. That pair is completed now.



One ball wasn't enough to complete the large adult halfdome cap, which isn't a surprise, but unless I make a longer contrasting brim, one ball isn't enough for me to make the regular adult size either. I finished off the top of the large cap with the black yarn I used for the brim (pictured below in green; the hat is weirdly shaped because it's too big for me, but it should fit Aubrey). I'll buy more of the blue to finish the last few rounds of the regular cap, and maybe knit a second one from the top down so it won't matter when I run out of color.



Nice picture of my bald spot, huh?

Fibonnaci again

When the socks I intended for Joe were too small, I wanted to get working on another pair quickly. Joe is a retired engineer, so I figured he might like the Finonacci sequence design. I picked up some New England Highland wool in oatmeal and teak. Working from actual measurements, I created these socks:


One pair of socks finished, four more in progress (which shows a profound lack of imagination and ambition, if you ask me). Meanwhile, I set sock work aside to begin working on some Halfdome caps in the latest issue of Knitty. These are cool, although I don't understand why the instructions have you knit them flat then sew the seam. I'm knitting them in the round by casting on two less stitches than the pattern calls for, then subtracting those stitches from the count at the beginning and end of the marker placements and decrease rounds. I've got one cap in progress to replace the lame one I made for Aubrey this spring, and when I ran out of yarn to complete the crown, I started another.

Mission: get all these socks and hats completed before the next XY Knit-In at the Merc next week.