The Golden Iris

Embossed Leaves Socks are finished! This lovely photo courtesy of my bookcase and my self timer. Here's a slightly better shot of the texture of these things. After some minor modifications, they look and fit great. The Stats Pattern: Embossed Leaves Socks, Winter 2005 Interweave Knits Yarn: KnitPicks Essential Needles: #1 bamboo dpns Modifications: First of all, no twisted ribbing because I'm lazy. The pattern also asks you to cut the yarn and rejoin at the heel, which I didn't bother with. I also changed the toe because my feet are too long for the pattern, and so knit the foot longer and just did a plain old stubby wedge toe. The gauge is a little looser than I normally like my socks to be knit at, and we'll have to see how the Essential wears with use. Other than that, these were a fun pair of socks to knit and they just seemed to fly off the needles (that is, when I was actually working on them). The next pair of socks? I've certainly got choices...

Here is the back of my cabled sweater. It's coming out to be the right width, thankfully -- that tiny bit of ribbing you saw really did turn into this. It's about 8 inches long and I'm supposed to start the armholes at 10 1/2 inches. I'm thinking I may make it a little bit longer. I'm not in danger of running out of yarn, as far as I can tell. It's uncommon for me to knit anything on as big of a needle as a #8, so I feel like I'm just flying along, and it's so gratifying to see the sweater grow. I keep contemplating learning to knit combined, because it really does make the transition between knit and purl stitches cleaner. I have some loose stitches that are simply the product of switching between knit and purl and the way I knit, but I don't know if I can handle the transition to combined knitting, re-learning my purl, and learning to deal with all the twisted stitches without worry. Maybe on another project! At least this one will be consi...

A little while ago, I heard at my LYS that they were going to contribute to a project to help needy children in an orphanage in Kazakhstan. The coordinator is the owner of a LYS in Kentucky, who adopted children from the orphanage. In that part of Kazakhstan it gets very, very cold; the orphanage is run on a very limited budget and the children need warm things made of wool, as the synthetics won't keep them warm. So I made a sock. Of course, I'll make the other one. Maybe I'll make more than this pair. It's not much, but I don't think I do enough to help other people. There are so many projects that knitters can contribute to... and it's wonderful to see that knitters can make an impact. As far as I know, my LYS is going to donate as many items as they can collect, but I don't think they've publicized it yet. For more information about the primary project, see Knit-On's website . Haven't done much other knitting lately. I keep thinking a...

Yesterday I visited the National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center outside of Washington, DC. We got to see the Concorde: And the Joint Strike Fighter (that my brother-in law has been working on): And the Enola Gay: And probably less important to everybody else, but cool to me, a WWII Corsair: The Corsair is a Navy plane; the wings fold up so that it can be easily stored on an aircraft carrier. My grandfather was on the USS Shangri-la in the Pacific, and tells stories about these planes and the men who flew them, learning to land on the aircraft carrier deck. See the hook at the back? When the planes landed they had to catch one of 4 tripwires at the end of the deck to stay on the ship; the runway wasn't long enough for a normal landing. As you can probably guess, if they missed the wires it wasn't pretty -- if they could pull up and circle around, they could try for another landing, but if not, they would just smack into the ocean and that would be the end of it. Th...

... I just have a desirable low micron count! Har, har. This thing, believe it or not, is the ribbing for the back of my sweater (okay, so I have some rows left to knit, but that's the entire width). It is very sproingy, but knitting worsted weight on #2 needles isn't what I'd call fun for my wrists. If I had thought a little bit more before starting this pattern, I probably wouldn't have done the ribbing on #2s -- the original pattern called for a mohair, the core of which was probably pretty fine, and wouldn't have been so stiff on the small needles. But I'm not ripping out 2 sleeves, and since I want the body to match, #2s it is. Here is Buck with the knitting, because he helps me show off all small things. Bloglines I've decided I really like bloglines. Maybe this makes me a loser for not discovering how convenient it was before, but oh well. I like using it because I no longer have to check for new content manually, which saves me time wandering a...

Ok, so I enjoy the 'cartoon' function on my photo editor. Too bad! Finally, I have something substantial to share! Last night I stayed up late to finish the sleeves on my vintage cabled sweater. I always do both sleeves at the same time; if I didn't, I'm sure they would come out wildly different in both size and gauge. I let things go too long between picking them up. The two balls in the photo are what was left of each of the single balls of Naturespun I used on the sleeves. I also don't understand the popular complaint against knitting sleeves. One part of a sweater is just as good as another, I'd say. And by doing them first, and both at the same time, you've suddenly got a significant portion of your sweater done -- two whole pieces. I'm going to try and do this sweater properly -- I'll block the pieces before seaming, and try to figure out a decent way to seam the sleeve caps (a task that Mom used to get). I think I'll do the back next...

I had the wonderful opportunity to take a long weekend this weekend and have my mom come visit. I haven't really spent time with her for about a year, so it was a treat! Friday we visited Longwood Gardens , which is wonderful because she works in nursery (and I used to) so we really love plants. Seeing as PA is easily a zone warmer than Chicago, different things thrive here. Mom was continually amazed by the plants and the sheer immensity of Longwood's property. Among other things, we got to see the famous water staircase, the lily pond, and the topiaries. In the conservatory we looked at some crazy Old Man Cacti, who are covered in this fuzzy white fiber. Saturday we visited the yarn store and campus. I bought a teacup while we were wandering around in the antiques mall. Now I can drink tea properly. Sunday we both had haircuts (I've only had one professional haircut, ever, and I'm trying to keep it that way) and went to the local Farmer's Market and got hei...

But no cigar. These are the nifty Embossed Leaves Socks, from the Winter '05 Interweave. Or, I guess, they were. In the photo they're on #2s and they aren't coming out the way I like, and I've already made several mistakes. So I'm ripping them out and re-doing them on #1s. This is what flying by the seat of my pants gets me, gauge mistakes and rip-outs. At least these little guys are going quickly, and they're fun to do. Back to doing my very finest impression of a frog....

Here's a better photo of some new Jaywalkers relaxing. And Jaywalkers standing up. Hooray for another pair of socks! I enjoyed knitting these, although the second one languished for a while until I got my act together this weekend and stormed through to the finish. On to the stats: Yarn: Reynolds "Swizzle" which, in my humble opinion, is perfect for these. Needles: #1 dpns Pattern: Jaywalker , by Grumperina Modifications: I made the larger version, because I have wide feet, and I'd heard that these were a little snug to get on. They fit perfect -- a little snug during the on-off process, but perfect while they're on. I also added picots to the top, which was probably a mistake, because it took really long to make them, and they roll. Maybe a wash and a block will help a little. So what's next? Oh yes... this guy... He's going to become a felted Fiber Trends hedgehog, if I don't run out of fuzzy crap. Because I certainly don't want to bu...

Today I finished my pair of Jaywalkers (finally!) and made some banana bread. The color isn't right on these -- they're really turquoise, but my camera doesn't like color at night. I'll try to take some better photos tomorrow.

Here is an arty picture of my Gossamer Ruffle Shawl. Quite frankly, I think it looks like a badly planned cross between a turquoise octopus and some discarded Christmas tinsel. But that's okay. I like it. It makes me feel all silly and fun, like some medieval princess, when I wear it. Not that I really know when I'm going to wear it.... but that's okay. This was a project I had always wanted to do, ever since I saw the pattern come out in magazine advertisements. So I did it. I was kind of disappointed that I ran out of yarn, especially when I discovered it took me almost 150 yards of the metallic fluffy stuff -- almost as much as an additional, third, ball of the Gossamer -- to do the last 2 rows. I don't think I could have finished the shawl in the two balls the pattern called for. And the bind off... 1,700+ stitches... honestly took me over 2 hours. Unbelievable. Today's unsolicited advice? Don't make anything with a giant ruffle. It feels like it ...