My! I have failed to post with any sort of frequency.

Indeed.

I've been quite busy over the past month or more with the costumes for our school play, Babes in Toyland, which went over fairly well.

Now, I've got a dozen projects on the needles...

C'est la vie.

I am also reading Les Misérables. I love this book, although I started it on Election Day, and I've still only gotten to just past the incident where Enjolras imposed justice on that murderer, shortly after the barricade was erected. (But still, 950+/1232 or so is still good--wouldn't you say?)

I can't post any pictures because of the fact that I lost my camera cable (I'm not sure if I mentioned that in an earlier post) I haven't bothered to take any pictures for that matter.

I've started several bags and several pairs of socks (about 10 pairs on the needles) and I've finished the Oriel Lace ones since I last posted.

Should I not post before Christmas, I would like to wish all my readers (if you're out there) an unabashedly Merry Christmas!

Quite Prolix, or, rather, not very

Prolix: 2: marked by or using an excess of words
~Merriam-Webster Online

which, I am, although I may not be able to demonstrate it in this post.

Sigh. School has been a mix of good and bad. I did transfer to a different school (did I mention that?) and everyone's been nice. However, I lost my purse on September 18. Inside the purse? A $99.99 graphing calculator, which has since been replaced, a cross-stitch project, my library cards for three counties, and...

The purple wave socks.

It still has not been found or returned, and I seem to have lost my knitting vigor, or at least my sock vigor with the loss of this pair.

I did attend the Wool Gathering back on September 20, and there I sat and wove... and wove... and wove... for the very first time on a 2/2 twill table runner at the SCA booth, where they were indeed kind enough to let me use the loom.

My purchases?

• A Wool Gathering tee
• Noro Kureyon Sock in... probably 092, if Yarndex is correct
• Noro Silk Garden Sock in... uh, S245?
• Opal Rainforest series in the caterpillar colorway
• Kaffe Fassette Regia Landscape in the colorway fire, I believe
• CPY Maizy (I wanted to try Panda Wool, Panda Silk, and Panda Soy, as well as the manufacturer's dyes for Panda Cotton, but I didn't end up doing so)
• CPY Kid Merino, berry, to make Ice Queen
• Knitting Notions Supersock in Pacific. I'm thinking I'm going to do LOTR themed socks with this.
• Yarn Place Gentle, in greys
• a rug hook
• a cotton spindle (because I bought some Foxfibre cotton last year and couldn't do much with it with my Schacht hi-lo)
• And, my last item, a swift, which seems to be oak, stained(?) in a reddish color.

I have also completed two more mesh bags to use for groceries. However, be forewarned, a project which I cannot seem to find again, is very small, and will not hold very much. The Saturday Market Bag, in Sugar'n'Cream is a success, though, and the Everlasting Bagstopper continues to be quite handy.

There are approxiamately 10 times as many items in my Ravelry queue as are in my projects...

"Knit on with confidence and hope, through all crises."

So said the late, great Elizabeth Zimmermann. And so I did yesterday, so long as I could see.

It is quite unbelievable...

The remnants of Hurricane Ike, somewhere between a tropical storm and a Category 1 hurricane level swept through Cincinnati, Ohio, and the surrounding areas yesterday afternoon. While I was happily knitting away on Aearlinnod, learning about tapestry, knotted pile, Scottish, Alaskan, and historical weaving and experiencing Convergence vicariously through Syne Mitchell, raging winds were ripping shingles off roofs and limbs off large trees. When I went out for a bit, the sustained wind seemed to be about a 6-7 on the Beaufort Scale; we must have had 10-11 force gusts. No, I'm not hurt, nor my immediate family (a bit discomforted from lacking electricity, as my hometown does as far as I know). There were indeed a few fatalities in the tri-state area.

I think I'm running a bit short of yarn for Aearlinnod. I have four long rows and the bind-off to do and my ball of yarn is about the size of a large clementine orange.

Anyway, if you were affected by Ike in any way, my prayers go out to you.

Gratias ago goodness Friday est

(probably miserable internet Latin: "Thank goodness it's Friday")

I looked at the sidebar of my blog and I realized that I only have, what, 11 posts this year if you count this one? I had 45 in 2007, when I had the blog all year, and 23 in 2006 when I only had it half the year. I need to get posting, and maybe type up some of the posts I wrote out at the beginning of summer.

I still cannot give you any pictures, but there hasn't been a whole lot of knitting going on. I've gotten in maybe five rounds on the "Estonian" Socks this week at school, and I knitted on Aearlinnod last weekend.

The rest of this post has nothing whatsoever to do with knitting; caveat lector.

School has been rather exhausting. The first day I had trouble finding my way around. I couldn't exactly follow my class to every class because I'm taking a couple classes they aren't. (I used several senses of the word "class" in that sentence; shall I toss in a few more?") I've made a few friends and people seem to be friendly. Yesterday we finally got to choose lockers, but they're in a rather remote corridor on the third floor, while homeroom is adjacent to the stairs on the second floor. The restrooms are on the first floor and down the hall...
But... there's construction, so maybe it'll get better.

It must be a Murphy's law thing, for I lost my pencil pouch on the first day and it was returned to me in biology class the day after I replaced my stuff.

Are there too many italics in this post?

Anyway, this is my schedule:
7:50-8:00-- Homeroom
1st Period-- Algebra
2nd Period-- Biology
3rd Period-- Health/Phys. Ed.
4th Period-- English
11:25-12:00?-- Lunch
5th Period-- World Civilization
6th Period-- Bible Class (I go to a Christian school & we pray to start roughly half our classes!)
7th Period-- Drama

I'm not used to seven periods, and we start 10 minutes earlier than I'm used to, but we do get out earlier.

Anyway...

...and school uniforms, with lots of socks

Guess what?

...


...


I took a picture of my "disastrous" error in Aearlinnod last night as I started some more tinking, and forgot to grab the camera! So, no pictures!

I'm a bit fed up with school uniforms, and I'll tell you why:
For the last 6+ years, I've had to wear either blue or khaki bottoms and light blue, red (originally pink), or white tops. This year, once more, involves uniforms: navy, khaki or black pants (and pants only, no skirts whatsoever, or shorts, or skorts, or whatnot) and light yellow, light blue, white, royal blue, or navy blue (I think) tops. School starts Tuesday.

I figured out today that I have more than 400 items in my Ravelry queue!

Anyway here's all the socks in progress, descending needle sizes:

• U.S. 5's: Wearable Art Socks (my first fair isle style knit)
  
• U.S. 4's: Open Lace(6) from SKS
• U.S. 3's: Arrow(8) from SKS
• U.S. 2's: Spiral Boot Socks from Interweave Knits Summer 2007
• U.S. 1's: secret sock project that is my own design. will not be pictured. May submit it somewhere.
• U.S. 1's: Oriel(12) from SKS
• U.S. 0's: Mock Wave Cable Socks from Favorite Socks
• U.S. 0's: Charade
  
• U.S. 0's: "Estonian" Socks from the Vogue Knitting Ultimate Sock Book (different from the ones in Folk Socks)
• U.S. 00's: DKed socks
• U.S. 00's: My own design in Sock-Ease

That adds up to: 11 sock projects. My, my, my, my, my. My, oh, my, look how the time flies, look how the world changes in the blink of an eye, my, oh, my, see how the years have gone, see how the hmmm-hmmm, my, oh, my. Sorry there. I reminded myself of a song.

In which I discuss socks, how I failed the Ravelympics, and school uniforms...

I have not posted in a while! (not that anybody really reads my blog anyway... if you are out there, please leave a comment, even if it's just "Hi!"! If you're not posting advertisements or obsceneties, I don't mind if it's spammy.) Hmm... Probably a few more exclamation points than I really need. Anyway, I've been meaning to post my wheel of socks for a while now, but never got around to it:


Starting at the right with the white pair, and going clockwise:

• Simple anklets with spot lace motif on instep. Patons Grace, Snow. Finished in November 2005.
• Elongated Corded Rib from Sensational Knitted Socks. (oh, thank you, Ravelry!) KnitPicks Dancing in Swing (discontinued). Circa summer 2006
• Ribbed Lace, again from SKS. KnitPicks Parade in Daffodil (this yarn had an error on an insert about a gauge error on the lable, calling it "parade following yarn"!) (discontinued) Circa summer to fall 2006.
• Welt Fantastic, SKS. KnitPicks Simple Stripes in Sweet Tarts (discontinued). Circa summer to fall 2006 (hmm... I thought it took me longer than that, but then I don't generally have socks on the needles that long.)
• Simple rib with Dutch Heel. The heel is from Folk Socks. ModaDea Sassy Stripes (A yarn I don't love-squeaky acrylic) in Storm. Winter 2006
• Braid Cable with Garter ridge from SKS. KnitPicks Essential Ash. Circa summer 2006 to January/February 2007. This, Welt Fantastic, and Ribbed Lace were all started at about the same time, but this took the longest time to finish, due to size 0 needles. Also, should you ever see a close up of this sock, I knitted it following the mistaken chart which erroneously inserted too many rows.
• Laburnum from SKS. Patons Grace in Lavender. The yarn doesn't wear that well. Winter to spring 2007.
• Little Shell Rib from SKS. KnitPicks Palette in Apricot. Spring to Summer, possibly into fall 2007.
• Basketweave Rib from SKS. KnitPicks Parade in Gumdrop. Finished circa fall 2007(?).
• Volare-my own version of a stitch dictionary pattern imposed on the Chevron stitches for self-striping yarn structure from SKS. KnitPicks Felici in Hummingbird. Fall 2007.
  
• Meida's Socks from Favorite Socks. KnitPicks Risata in Dusk. Fall into winter 2007
• Mocassin Socks as detailed in the November chapter of Knitter's Almanac. Patons Classic Merino in Paprika and some brown color. I don't remember when I started these, probably fall of '07. They were finished in February of this year--much of the second sock was knitted while watching The Two Towers movie, which I mentioned in a February entry.
• Crossover Rib Socks, SKS. KnitPicks Dancing in Tap. Started but frogged in September or October of '07 and knitted on while stranded in stand still traffic on the way back from a field trip to Frankfort, KY. Restarted winter '07/'08, finished around April or May of '08.
• "The-Socks-Not-To-Be-Named" or so I've been calling them. I originally called them Thrascia's socks or a title based on her name, but as Thrascia is my own character from a fanfiction that hasn't been published, no one knows who she is! They're my own stitch pattern imposed on the cable chapter skeleton from SKS. Knit in KnitPicks Essential Tweed Marina(color discontinued). Started in summer '07, finished probably in May '08.

Not shown:

• My very first pair of socks in a very basic pattern. Bernat Sox (the old sort) in Jazz Hot. December '04-May '06 or so(?) Because: They're my mom's, and I didn't bother to get them for photography.
• Purled Ladder, SKS. KnitPicks Palette in Nutmeg. (I think both colors of Palette I've used here are discontinued). Sept./Oct. '06 into January '07. Because: They're my dad's (supposed to be a Christmas gift...) and again I didn't bother to get them for photography.
• Austrian Socks from Favorite Socks. KnitPicks Palette in Rainforest Heather. Sept '07 to June '08. Because: Not finished on May 10, when this photo was taken.
• Entrelac Socks from Interweave Knits Spring '07. KnitPicks Palette in Ivy and Brindle Heather. January-July 2008. Because: Not finished by date of photo.

I do have in progress photos of the latter two, but no finished photos:


To the left/first photo: first Austrian sock, up in the air.
To the right/second photo: first Entrelac sock, again up in the air.

And now, to break up the monotony, we present:
(drumroll)
Reason #4,375 why Estonian lace and knitting group are not a good combination:

[imagine dramatic photo of mangled shawl here. Cry, weep, and optionally tear at clothing]

Okay, so I'm being over dramatic. In any case, I haven't made any progress on Laminaria (alias Aearlinnod) since early July due to this, with the dubitable excuse that I was going to take a photo. While at my knitting group, I was knitting on Laminaria... and forgot one of the 3-into-9 stars. I didn't notice this rather large error (the sort a non knitter would notice if they looked at all closely at the shawl; it also messes up the pattern) until I had purled the wrong side row (we're talking around 200 stitches or more) and knitted across to the error. My standard method of fixing things is to drop stitches down. Isn't gonna work. There is most certainly not enough slack in the yarn to make nine stitches when only three were knitted. I'm also not about to frog the thing. Hello? I'm into the blossom pattern now. So: tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink until about to defenestrate knitting, and tink some more.

(Note to self: This is a minor problem. You can do this, and with minor complaint, too. Settle down with some inspiring but non-distracting music and tink.)

How to fail the Ravelympics, in twelve steps:

Step 1: Be sure to overcommit yourself.

Step 2: Don't train.

Step 3: Don't have yarn and needles and pattern ready and waiting to start.

Step 4: Cast on laceweight while tired.

Step 5: Try to read and re-read Discworld books while not knitting.

Step 6: Introduce self to Discworld MUD. Play for hours on end. Repeat.

Step 7: Fail to utilize lots of free time as knitting time.

Step 8: Find out that you are not supposed to knit in the car when your paternal parent is within.

Step 9: Divide time between three pairs of socks.

Step 10: Need to recalculate rib pattern for sole of one sock.

Step 11: Worry about school; detracts from knitting time.

Step 12: Realize that you might just be finished if you had not decided to knit projects on size 0 and 00 needles.


And here's some pictures of my Ravelympics projects:

Or no... I don't have time to get the pictures up!

We Greatly Apologize for a Lack Of Posting...

This happens to be the eighty-first post on Arachnera's Web, and I believe I am approaching, if not past, my second blogiversary. Eighty-one happens to be the square of nine, which is the square of three. What my point is in pointing that out to you, I don't quite fathom, but I like the fact that 3⁴ is 81, the number of this post.

I know I have been neglecting you--after school got out, I haven't had consistent internet access, but that's really an excuse, because what I've really been doing is reading fanfiction, some of it really bad, hanging out on forums, and drooling over some on-sale Kureyon. I've drafted perhaps five blog entries in a notebook while I was not at an internet connected computer, but these never got typed up.

In the time between the last post and this one, I have:

• Finished the Austrian Socks
• Knit the Everlasting Bagstopper
• Finished my Swallowtail Shawl (had I started it in last post?)
• Started Laminaria, which I am calling Aearlinnod (Sea-song in Elvish)
• Nearly finished the Entrelac Socks (Knitting on the cuff right now)

Unfortunately, I don't have much time left on the computer, so I will have to truncate this entry for now.

The Coriolis Diaries, Part II

Due to the title of this post, my first object of discussion is the Coriolis socks I started a week ago tonight.

Perhaps I was really too tired to be starting another pair of socks late at night, but I made the choice. When it came time to start the Coriolis band (digression: I keep trying to type that "Coreolis") I discovered an oddity: I was minus three of the seventy-two stitches I should have(or so I thought). "Oh well," I thought. "I'll just have another repeat of the Coriolis band rows to add in the missing stitches." I placed my marker and started knitting a whole repeat of the three band rows, but without any decreases. Okay, I should have 72 stitches now. Guess what? I didn't. It seems I was missing 5 stitches in the first place.

Upon investigating the mystery, it seems that my inaugural experience with the JMCO did not work out so well; I lost a pair of stitches, so that there were only seventeen stitches on two edges of the garter square toe. Next, it seems that I didn't pick up enough stitches on the other two sides; leaving me with (3x17)+16=67 stitches. Now, I'm not really sure what I should do, so I'm putting up a poll on my blog as to what I should do:

(Hopefully this will work--this is the first time I've used Bravenet)

In other news, I have finished two other pairs of socks recently, and started several others. I took a picture of all 14 pairs of socks I've made for myself, but at the moment it isn't convenient to attempt to upload pictures.

As well, I got to visit my "L"YS today, and I bought the following:

• 3 skeins Reynolds Soft Sea Wool in Color #0320 (which is a plummy purple) for the Spiral Boot Socks (Link to Ravelry; non-Ravelers can see the design on this page--scroll down.)
• 2 skeins hemp for knitting allhemp6, in what I think might be color #102 for the Everlasting Bagstopper (This link is to Knitty--no Ravelry membership necessary)
  
  
  
  

The Coriolis Diaries, Part I

Technical note: Unfortunately, this post, which was intended to end up on my blog via email, and was written last Saturday, did not appear. I attribute this difficulty to the fact that I have moved control of the blog from my arachnera@the-large-free-email-account-provider-whose-name-begins-with-a-y-here-obscured-against-spammers Google account to the one associated with my Gmail address and the auto-publish blog email was associated with that account. So here it is:

Have finished two pairs of socks and started my first pair from Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters. I chose the spiraling Coriolis master pattern, wrote down my master numbers, and wrote out a summary of what I need to do as I knit. I'm using size zero needles--4 dpns, and KnitPicks Essential Multi in a now discontinued color way Riverbed Multi. I chose to disregard the whirlpool toe for the moment and go with a garter toe, so I learned the JMCO. Interestingly enough, because Riverbed is a mixture of blues and orange-browns, the colors in my hands were the same as those in Cat's illustration. My gauge is actually at the maximum end of spi in the master stitch number charts! But because my foot isn't that large, I don't have too many stitches.

I haven't reached my E point yet, but I'm working on it. Although I do have to wonder how the toe works out.

I have to wonder though, why in the world, according to the average foot size charts in the back of the book, I should wear a size 5 shoe, but instead I wear a size 7 1/2 to 8. Curious, anyway.

I will try to show you some pictures, but at the moment certain technical factors prevent me from placing pictures in this post.

This is duck's weather, and it's STILL raining!

Some roads are closed, there's high water just about everywhere, and the weather is just generallly nasty. Good weather to stay inside and knit, but that I don't have knitting with me...

Theoretically: many stitches, many words, many things to do...

If, perchance, there happen to be sixty-six stitches across the width of a latch hook rug...
And there happen to be ninety nine rows in this rug...
There will be six thousand, five-hundred, thirty-four pieces of yarn in the rug.
This would be the reason why the latchhook kit I recieved December 25, 2006 has long gone without any progress.
But I have managed to complete about 10% of the latch hooking recently. Enough to start getting the lighthouse in there.

If, perchance, there are five long lines and one shorter one per stanza of poem...
And there are, oh, about eleven or so words in each long line...
And about four or five in each of the shorter lines...
And there are eighteen stanzas in the poem...
There are about one thousand, sixty-two words in the poem
No small feat.
But I've memorized The Raven.

If someone should chance to check out approxiamately thirty books from one library at one time...
And one of those should happen to be about quilts, three (albeit one that wasn't very good) about basket making, hmm, I don't know; about a half dozen or more on crocheting and knitting, a tree guide, three -For Dummies computer books, two books on languages, three fiction, four or maybe even five weaving books...
And this person also needs to look up 180 words in the dictionary, do a report for psych class, complete assignments from when they were absent, figure out some wacky square roots, and complete a bunch of work book pages...
Well, needless to say, they will have difficulty getting everything they want to do done.
But I haven't managed to complete all this, yet, either....

Postscript: Hello, hello, hello. This is your beloved antagonist speaking here--Er, wait. Firstly, go over and read Harry's entry if you haven't already. Secondly, for your information, Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events (movie) is mildly beneficial for your knitting, as long as you don't try to eat rather messy popcorn at the same time.

Um, no, there haven't been many posts lately...

Really, there haven't. I have started work on Tala again, and I've started yet another pair of socks.

But I did discover that LOTR2: TTT movie is really great for knitting Mocassin Socks. Over the entire three hours, give or take perhaps thirty minutes for pausing for heel turning, I knitted 90% of the second sock!

Socks on the needles (in no particular order Scratch that. In order of needle size):

• Crossover Rib (SKS), size 2s
• Austrian Socks (Interweave's FS), size 1s
• Eunny Jang's Entrelac Socks (Interweave Knits Spring '07), size 1s
• The Socks that Shall NOT BE NAMED (SKS adaption), size 0s
• Mock Wave Cable (?) (Interweave's FS), size 0s
• Peacock DK socks (Knitty article, Fall '06 (?)), size 00s
• Wearable Art Socks. (Homespun, Handknit) size 5s

The WAS is my first attempt at Fair Isle style knitting, and it isn't working out too well. The blue of the design is recedeing (ARGH!) and the FI part has very little elasticity.

PS: If you haven't, you should check out Fleegle's blog today.

Hello...

I guess I haven't been posting much of late. I have been busy with Ravelry, on the whole not knitting a whole lot. Also, I detest (no insult to psychologists) psychology and fractions that include polynomials, both of which I unfortunatly have to study. Would much rather work with derivatives?...

Besides that, the camera is embleer full of pictures, and the batteries may be low. I also have tons of socks on the needles, designs in my head, my own derivition of Tolkien's Elvish*, and a Ravelry queue chock-ful of stuff!

* Ah, ahem, yes. I have been reading too much LOTR. And I did finally get to watch the Fellowship of the Ring movie, and perhaps got about eight rounds of knitting done on a cabled 72 stitch sock (more on that later) during 2hrs.58min.59sec. (I think).

Random thought:
Why do I have a post tagged spinnning?

January thinks it's March!

The weather is balmy and perfect for even short sleeves right here today (albeit perhaps a bit on the cool side). In fact, I wonder what I'm doing sitting here at the computer typing this when I should be outside. Anyway, you deserve the first blog entry of 2008.

Question:
How many socks do I have in progress?

The answer--enough to keep most of my needles busy
(but no pictures)
Let's see-one set of 0's, two sets of 1's, one set of 2's, and one set of 00's.

The 0's are occupied with my variation on the cable design, the set of four 1's in the Austrian socks(which are suffering from my SSS), the set of five 1's in my pair of Meida's socks, the 2's in a pair of socks I frogged back in September and am now restarting, and the 00's in my second attempt at Extreme Knitting.

and

Question: What sock stuff do I have on order?

The answer: 22 items that are related to socks-enough yarn for 9 pairs (one of which is for Eunny Jang's Entrelac Socks from Spring 2007 Interweave Knits) and Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters, Book 1. (I also order some undyed worsted weight, which I will elaborate on further, shortly, and a couple skeins of laceweight that I felt were quite truly a bargain. )

The worsted weight, well... My knitting group meets tonight, and we are supposed to be starting a class on making a sweater without a pattern. I am not sure whether I will participate or not. I am a quasi-non-sweater knitter, and I think I would prefer an EZ style sweater even though I think the class is for sweaters knit in the flat. Additionally, I've never tried a wool sweater, though I love Tangled Yoke and think most of the sweaters from winter's Interweave are absolutely exquisite. Speaking of magazines and catalogs, I recieved a seed catalog the other day. Really very little space for a garden at the moment, but a girl can dream, can't she?

In any case, I'll make myself some more wristwarmers.

Postscript: If you're on Ravelry, you may have noticed how tags are sorted into alphabetical order. I find it rather funny. As well, I'm glad Blogger doesn't do so. Otherwise, I'm afraid I should have tagged this post "for, knitters, new, pathways, sock"