...and Nalbinding

Unfortunately I seem to have a cold or some such thing. I have a headache, my throat is scratchy and I don't feel very good at all. But you shall hear about my adventures anyway!

I told you that I frogged Wheelie, but I also restarted it and knit maybe 3 1/4 repeats of the 24 row pattern.

I found my size 0 dpn from the gray sock in a most unlikely place this morning. (And I almost typed "most unlickly place" That would be very odd....)

I also did some nalbinding this weekend. I had, as I mentioned back a while ago, tried it with Wool Ease, but it didn't work out. But over this last Thanksgiving weekend, I had the idea-Everyone seems to think you ought to use wool singles, so why not use this Mauch Chunky you bought for fulling/felting back in May when you went to KnitWits? It's the color Kiwi and I made up a pattern as I went along. (Oh and I know it's off-topic, but aren't the little watermelon and sunflower dresses cute?) If you're interested and you don't know how to nalbind, you might go to Phiala's String Page (link on the sidebar or just click on the name, which leads you to the exact page.)-I learned from the tutorial there. Actually, you need to look at the tutorial so that you'll know what I'm talking about in several places.

An Interesting Nalbound Potholder

A beginner's pattern, but a bit of prior practice is recommended (not much, just practice what is shown in the tutorial once or twice.)

(Notes: This looks rather like a mitten/glove thumb or finger and is used for holding pot handles. I cannot vouch for the use of a nalbinding needle in this pattern. I used what I had on hand, which was a large yarn needle. This pattern is based on my experience with crochet and what I learned in the above tutorial. I am sort of making up my own way of writing instructions. Please email me or leave a comment if you need help. Also, I am a beginner at this and cannot say that this is at all proper nalbinding, but anyway... By the way, when you need to join in a new length of yarn since nalbinding is done with fairly short lengths of yarn, I would recommend using moisture, warm hands, and a rolling action to felt the lengths of yarn together.)

You will need:

Some Mauch Chunky or comparable other yarn (such as handspun or the Brown Sheep's Lamb's Pride that KnitWits says it it just like without the mohair) MUST NOT BE SUPERWASH! MUST BE FELT-ABLE!
A needle, the large type, or possibly a nalbinding needle

For felting:
A large bowl or other container in which to work
Hot and cold water
A bit of gentle soap if you like.

First, work a circular beginning as shown in the tutorial, working somewhere between 5-10 O/UO stitches into the ring, whatever you feel is right. Pull the starting end to tighten the ring. Leave it fairly long so that you can weave it in later. Once you have worked enough stitches and are ready to do another round, make a loop into the upper loop of your first stitch. Work two of the O/UO sts into each of the loops until you have reached the beginning of the round. Now, start a new round with a loop into the first loop of the previous round. This time, though, work *1 O/UO into loop, 2 O/UO into next loop repeat from * to end of round. Here, you can do one of two things:

1) You can continue increasing to make a larger potholder or something else.
(For this pattern, I followed this system:
1: stitch into ring
2: 2 sts in every stitch
3: *1 st in 1st st, 2 sts in next st*
4: *1 st in each of next 2 sts, 2 sts in next st*
5: * 1 st in each of next 3 sts, 2 sts in next st*
Et cetera...
If you need help, again, email me.)

If you choose to take this path, you're going to be pretty much on your own. You can email me but I can't guarantee I'll be able to help.

2) You can do as I did and start the round upon round without any more increases.

In the latter case, work until you feel that your potholder is just slightly longer than it needs to be. It will look like a mitten/glove thumb or finger. Then end it. (I wasn't sure what to do, so I just made a little stitch into the start of the round and then ran the end through the stitches. You might note that after a while, I just started doing continuous rounds as you might do when crocheting in the round. ) Weave the beginning end in and felt lightly by agitation in hot water(will be in large bowl-add the soap here if you want.), dips in cold water, and running water on your piece.

Do you think a Knitter's/Fiber Addict's Twelve Days of Christmas would be interesting?

Knitting, Frogging, and...

So there was a bit of bad news for me last Wednesday that I'm not willing to share. Then:

Knitted one repeat on Wheelie. I got the Cascade Fixation at KnitWits Contemporary Yarn Shop. It's varigated dark and light denimy color which I don't know the number of for sure but it might be 9045. Frogged because I did not think it was stretching correctly.

I had previously frogged the beginning of the Nutmeg socks I'm making for a Christmas present. Too big on 80 sts-frogged. Started for DKing on 72 sts, frogged because I didn't feel like DKing them(there was only one row so it was painless.). I kind-of like DKing, but not rushing to complete a DKed item. Then I knitted about 5 or 6 inches on them on 72 sts. They are too big. I probably have to frog them, but haven't yet.

No progress on the Storm socks and very little on the Ash Braid and Garter Bead. I seem to have lost the fourth dpn of the ABGB socks on Monday and so couldn't progress.

I intended to post about nalbinding, but that and the rest of my knitting updates will have to wait since I am almost out of time!

Dilated Eyes

I have dilated eyes at the moment. I went to see the eye doctor. So not much entry today. Eyes do not feel good. Are eye medications supposed to make you not be able to write good sentences? Anyhow, I have nalbinding and knitting adventures from the weekend to put up soon.

One Complete Sock!

I completed one of the socks in Moda Dea Sassy Stripes "Storm." It looks rather cobbled together, but that is due to my design choices, not the yarn. (Er, by the way, in the review, it seems I confused the name of a KnitPicks yarn with the Moda Dea yarn. I was reviewing the Sassy Stripes. Also, I meant to say that this "almost-squeakyness" is possibly inherent due to the fiber content of the yarn. )

Sock info:

Yarn: Moda Dea Sassy Stripes, colorway "Storm"
Needles: U.S. Size 3 dpns, set of 4
Heel: Dutch heel from Nancy Bush's Folk Socks
Toe: Short Row toe adapted from the 5 st. sock pattern in Sensational Knitted Socks
Number of Stitches: 48
Pair finished: No, only one sock.

I read this review of The Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning and had to note: I immensely enjoyed this book, and I don't even actually spin on a spinning wheel. I've done some spindle spinning as you might already know, and I even tried a spinning wheel at the Wool Gathering and liked it, but I don't *really* spin on a spinning wheel. And don't ask me how I came across it; I don't really know!

Today it seems that my keyboard and me are not cooperating particuarly well, so this'll be the end.

Happy Knitting,
~Arachnera

Pictures at last! (Or not.)

A couple more things about the gray socks, then I will treat you to some pictures that were very hard to get on here!

1) Actually, the problem was that I had forgotten to transfer a cable to the heel needle, not that the heel flap was on the wrong side.

2) Another drawback occurred when I thought I lost my needle (see this post, which now has two links to it! They are me linking to myself, though.) and actually hadn't but didn't get the needle back for a while, either.

3) If you are making cabled socks from Sensational Knitted Socks, there are a few errors in the heel instructions in my book, which was order from KnitPicks in May '06. I don't have the book in front of me to tell you, but I believe one of the errors is failure to give correct instructions for the garter stitch edging to the heel flap on the stockinette stitch heel flap. Just thought I'd warn you.

Randomly:

It's a little late to hear the news, but Smoke Free Ohio's Issue 5 passed and Issue 4 did not this last Election Day. This means that there will be no more smoking in restaurants! (If you have no idea what I'm talking about and want to know, visit the website. If you don't want to know, just ignore it.) I am very glad! I detest smoking and think it is idiotic.

Random note to self:

If spellchecking in Blogger(at least Beta Blogger), left click the errors and click on "Done Spellchecking" when you are finished. Right clicking works but brings up another menu that obscures the spelling options.

Okay... I just accidently pasted something into this message, causing momental confusion, but it was cleared up when I realized I had pressed Ctrl+V instead of Ctrl+T. (In other words, I did the keyboard command for "paste" instead of the command for "open new tab in Firefox so that I can find the URL for the post I want to link back to"). Yes, if you read what is enclosed in those parenthesis, sometimes I write text that I want to become a link and continue writing, randomly stopping to find the URL.

Ignore that(the paragraph that begins with "Okay..."). Anyway, here are the hard-for-your-author-to-get pictures:

Sorry, but due to unforseen technical difficulties, the pictures may not ever get up. I apologize.

Warning: Gray second socks, especially with cables and size 0 needles may be disaster prone!

Today, at least in Northern Kentucky, where I am at the moment, is a day of weather for ducks. And umbrellas.

(Added: Warning: Long post!)

As I was saying yesterday, before I had to leave the computer, I have started using Blogger in Beta. So the site is a bit updated and I have something to tell you about the FO names. I also am going to try to put up what had been promised previously. But first: What about the title?

Well, here's the story:
(Note: These socks are the Braid Cable and Garter Bead socks from Charlene Schurch's
First, as noted in this post: "Tragedy", the second sock of the Ash Braid and Garter Bead, as I called them when I typed out the pattern for carrying around, had to be frogged when I had just started the cable pattern after the ribbing since the needles came out. Then, yesterday, I was knitting on the socks during lunch period while sitting outside after eating lunch. By the way, yesterday was not rainy. I was bombarded with questions such as "Can you make mittens?" and "What's crocheting?" (Actually, the latter came about due to the fact that the answer to the previous question was "I've never knitted mittens, but I've crocheted one." And please note that the ask-ers were not adults.) I answered these questions as I knitted the first few rows of the heel flap. Important point: I did not look very closely at the pattern before the heel flap rows. I knitted some more on the heel flap last night until I had only 11 more rows to go to get the requisite 33 rows. I knitted those 11 rows during lunch period after eating lunch, while sitting semi-miserably, since I did not have a particularly good morning. I did not notice that anything was even slightly wrong. Then I started turning the heel after a bit of commotion that is irrelevant to the story. I gradually noticed that one side of the heel seemed to have very few stitches compared to the other side. I had to put the sock away for a bit, after hurriedly tinking the so far turned heel. When I could again work on it, I picked it up and counted the stitches. There were 5 fewer stitches than I ought to have-28 instead of 33! What happened? I had done the heel on the wrong side of the sock, meaning I had fewer stitches than I should have. Unfortunately I didn't even bother to check the number of stitches when I did the decreasing for the heel flap yesterday. It took a while for the specifics of my error to dawn on me, though. So the heel flap is destined to be frogged and re-knit in the correct position.

About finished sock names:
(Note: After I had read and re-read one of the stories from one of the KnitLit books about naming projects, I started doing it my self. It's kind of fun! These names are in order of completion from top down. All patterns are from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch. All needles are in U.S. sizes and all patterns were made on sets of 4 dpns.)

"Swing (or Dance) Over the Rainbow"- Name derived from the name of the yarn (KnitPicks Dancing, colorway Swing) and the fact that it has almost all the colors of the rainbow in it.
The pattern: Elongated Corded Rib on 64 sts. Size 2 needles

"Wholly Holey Dieting Daffodils"-Now that's one odd name. Where did it come from? (And why did this part just remind me of part of a riddle?) Well, I thought the "wholly holey" was kind of funny and it's appropriate since the sock is made in Ribbed Lace pattern, which brings me to the "Dieting" part-ribbing draws in, so it's suggestive of dieting socks. (Okay, bad joke and equally odd sentence, where are you going to, Arachnera? Stop it!) The sock yarn is KnitPicks Parade, colorway Daffodil, which again inspired the name.
The pattern: Ribbed Lace on 48 sts. Size 3 needles

"Willy Wonka's Weird Dreams"-Well, the original name considered for these socks was rejected due to possible interpretations. Anyway, although Willy Wonka is known for owning a chocolate factory, the candy SweeTarts is marketed by Nestle as Wonka candy and the sock, which is the Welt Fantastic pattern in Sensational Knitted Socks makes the Sweet Tarts colorway Simple Stripes yarn from KnitPicks look kind of like Willy Wonka was having odd dreams. (You know, the sort where the dream world is about half-real.)
The pattern: Welt Fantastic on 66 sts. (?) Size 1 needles

Yarn Review:
Moda Dea Simple Stripes (Added: Should be Sassy Stripes!)
Purchased on clearance at Meijer. (The yarn mentioned in this post bought at $4.80+ tax.)

Color:
Again, I don't have a picture; I don't have a digital camera and certain circumstances prevent even non-digital photos from getting on this blog unless they are somewhere else on the Internet. I bought the colorway Storm, which is grayish-black, white, and grayish-black & white small spaced stripes. So far the color has turned out rather odd to me. It does not seem to have much of any sense of a regular pattern. I have not, however, knitted but about 3-4-5" on one sock on size 3 dpns. I'm using 48 stitches and a plain vanilla (Why am I calling it plain "vanilla"?) sock pattern except that I'm doing 2x2 rib for the whole leg and haven't decided about the foot. I might be able to update you on this later, once I've done more.

Quality:
It's acrylic, meaning that it is no where near as nice as wool socks. But I could hardly resist buying a bit more sock yarn. And I should have resisted starting socks with it, but I did anyway. There has been one knot-like blip in the yarn, which I knitted in, because for some reason I usually do that. When I was knitting I noticed that it's almost, I repeat, almost squeaky on the needles. (Added: may be inherent due to acrylic.)It seems so far to have a sporadic pattern, but I really can't say since I haven't even finished one whole sock. Check back for possible updates once I get further in the sock.

Overall:
I'd give it 7 on a scale of 10, 1 being "Don't buy this stuff, it's the worst yarn in the world" and 10 being: "You must have this yarn." This is due to the almost squeaky-ness and the so far odd color pattern.

Sorry, but since if I have much more time on the computer, it will go to admiring some yarn and yet more typing on a short paper that is due next week, I have to go. The interesting parts noted in Knitter's Almanac will come in a future post.

New and Improved (Or not?)

You may notice, if anyone has been reading this blog, that the blog has changed a bit. I have added some links, a list of my WTMs, WIPs, and FOs, and have switched to Beta Blogger. This blog was originally located with Bloglines, but was moved due to typing problems. I have not had any typing problems with Blogger as of yet (Except for mistakes due to hitting random keys that Windows sometimes interprets as a command and that sounded somewhat awkward, but I can't put my finger on it and this sentence is.... EEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!) To be continued....

Four Situations (and smileys)...

...Two of which end happily and two of which end fairly sadly.

Here they are:

1) I turned 2 heels at once with minimal difficulty. Hooray! :-)

2) I started the Christmas socks last night at a knitting program. Unfortunately:
I) I tried to start them on only 64 sts when I needed 72, so I had to fix that.
II) I forgot that dk-ing may result in extra loose stitches, so who knows if the sock will turn out right. Waa! :-(

3) I discovered at lunch today that I did not have all the size 0 dpns in my bag for knitting on the gray sock, which I think is almost ready for the heel flap. Waa! :-( (But see the bottom of the post; there's good news, actually.)

4) I bought more sock yarn-2 balls for $4.80 plus tax. Hooray! :-)

However, I just realized, as I was typing, that the fourth dpn is not gone/missing/lost/recruited by the one-who-shall-not-be-named. Well actually, that third, no, fourth option is not accurate at all except for the recruiting part; I had recruited it last night to help with transferring two long-tail cast ons into dk-ing position and I hadn't knitted it out yet. Oh...

Soon to come:
Look for another review of a different sock yarn and a couple observations made while reading EZ's Knitter's Almanac. (They are mistakes; I have an unfortunate tendency to be picky about details.)

Happy Knitting (or other fiber art)
~Arachnera

Not much...

Title says it all; not much knitting going on. Few rows on gray sock today, but not much. Not too much time left to restart and complete a pair of socks for Christmas. Maybe I'll try doing 'em two at once.