Reason I love my job number 138:

This is an excerpt from an actual IM conversation between myself and a coworker.

Jack: Would you have any use for a mess of knitting yarn? I have a cardboard carton full that I need to get rid of.
Me: Always.
Jack: You're welcome to it if you can use it.
Me: Thanks very much, I'm sure I can give it a good home.
Jack: do you want me to bring that knitting yarn to work with me tomorrow?
Me: Sure! I'd really appreciate it.
Jack: ok :)

Yes. Just... yes. Even if it's just a bunch of Red Heart worsted weight acrylic I win: There are plenty of projects I have in mind that need.. 'disposable' yarn.

Important Knitting Lessons

8.) Yarn can on occasion be obtained in the most unusual places, in

unorthodox ways... and most amazingly, sometimes for free.

9.) Free yarn can be cheap, scratchy, or ugly... yet it should never be

turned away. The person offering it to you may get rid of some good

stuff later and will remember how happy and thankful you were.

Destiny and Ramblings

I didn't blog about this yesterday but I kinda fell on my wallet at the Other Yarn Store that's near my work and somehow ended up with a 50 g ball of Misti Alpaca Worsted that had been on clearance for a couple weeks. There were no other balls in this dye lot, which may have been why it was cheap. It's a soft dusty pink color and my hooker coworker (by which I mean that she crochets) wanted to steal it for a chin pillow. It is lovely, soft, sweet-smelling and luscious.

It is also useless.

What was I thinking? What can a knitter make with only one small ball of pink alpaca? I know I could knit my dog a sweater with it and still have some leftovers but I'm not mean enough to put my male dog in a pink sweater. Even if he does weigh four pounds as a fully grown dog.

Since it's been established it was the only ball in its dye lot I can't even go back and get more. I have just purchased a high-class orphan and have nothing worthy enough to pair with it. The stash yielded navy, pink, and rust red cashmere blends, but the colors are all off compared to the alpaca. The only other really really rilly nice yarns (silk blends, super fine merino) I have are fingering weight, sport weight, or fated for socks-- except for my linen worsted, which you could not PAY me to put with this stuff. I have other alpaca yarn, but it's 14 skeins of bulky weight for a blanket I'll be making once I feel worthy of the fiber, and a tangled skein of amethyst jewel-tone bulky I planned on turning into a neckwarmer but frogged when my previous attempt ended in failure and never rewound.

Most of my stash has a purpose, with the exception of some of the acrylic and nylon novelty yarns I purchased before I knew better. Especially the doodoo brown eyelash yarn with variegated grey and tan bobbles twined around it. I have a vague memory of planning a lace scarf for my sister but I've been blessed with amnesia on the details.

Even the Red Heart and other worsted weight acrylic yarns have a purpose. They are for things I want to last until the next ice age, some stuffed animals I don't want to felt, moth repulsion, and cheap presents for people I don't care for. Also, awful plastic-feeling acrylics are a good deterrent for the "can you knit me something?" beggars. My answer? "Sure! Here's a scratchy, cheap, neon yellow and pink scarf that will haunt your nightmares until you die!" (Yes, I'm evil.)

So I have a single ball of pink alpaca that still has no destiny. There's a Knitting Lesson in here somewhere, but darned it I can put it to words.

I must be a masochist.

I must be a masochist.

There's no other explanation for my behavior. I was cruising along on clue 1 for the Mystery Stole and all of a sudden I didn't have enough stitches for a row (row 73). After tinking back the row I counted the number of stitches: 72. I'm supposed to have 73. So I wrack my brain and try to figure out where I went wrong. I didn't want to frog since (as a newbie mistake) I've been removing my lifeline and reusing it to cut down on unnecessary drag when pulling it out on my needles to admire so it was currently in row 66. But as I was unable to find the mistake (even though I had completed rows 67-71 without having extra stitches) there was little choice but to pull it out gently. I slipped my stitches back on my needles with a sigh, prepared to start row 67 a second time when I had a sudden thought and carefully counted them, had a heart attack, and recounted them three times.

66 stitches. 66 stitches for a row that requires 67.

After a little meltdown where I threw a little fit and cried quietly at my seat I tinked back (painstakingly carefully) to the previous lace row and counted again. 64 stitches when there should be 65.

Crap.

I kept tinking entire rows and quietly cursed at myself for moving the lifeline and was getting more and more exasperated, about to the point of regretting I had ever started the stole and thinking maybe just frogging it and denying I had ever even cast it on while chewing tinfoil and singing God Save The Queen would be a better idea... Then I hit row 58. Glorious row 58!! 59 beautiful stitches, perfectly in place and ready for row 59.

After doing a little dance (which drew odd looks from coworkers, I'm sure) and having a celebratory peanut butter cup I am now sitting back down to place a size 10 crochet cotton thread through the wonderful, wonderful row which is now my favorite row in the entire stole. It might be a WS row, but row 58 is the best row in the entire lace project.

Important Knitting Lessons:

the new lessons are in green

1. Never believe a book or pattern when it says you can fudge the gauge on a fitted garment like a sweater, hat, or sock.
2. Always make a swatch using the stitch you'll be using for a sock no matter what the book or pattern notes say, even if it means multiple swatches (St st and pattern), and even if it's only for your own reference.
3. To preserve their sanity a knitter should have projects in a variety of weights, knitting styles, textures of yarn, difficulty, and project lengths in progress at the same time
4. To prevent the desire for self-impalement on their sock needles as a relief from the monotony a knitter should not forget the importance of varying the color family of the yarns in their various projects-in-progress.
5. In cleaning skyscraper windows, rock climbing, and most of all knitting intricate lace safety lines are NOT a stupid idea.
6. Never put all your eggs in one basket, or all your trust in a single lifeline.

I'm blue, da ba di da bu...

Projects OTN (AND I've been working on):

1.) Medium blue Chenille Magic Scarf
2.) Medium/Dark blue "My So-called Scarf"
3.) Medium blue MS3
4.) Medium blue baby kimono
5.) Light blue mittens
6.) Medium blue (mixed with other colors stranded-style) swatch for an EZ yoke sweater
7.) Blue novelty yarn scarf in a lattice lace on size 19s.
8.) Blue-green (but mostly blue) dishcloth


The blue! The BLUE! *cries* I swear on all things woolly I did NOT plan on this. The MS3 signups closed before I got a paycheck from my new job so I had to CO with the only laceweight wool I own: denim-colored Cashwool from Lane Borgosesia Baruffa. That was what made me realize just how many blue items that are in the works.

In happier news I've identified the problem: I need to meet people with a favorite color other than blue. TBT loves dark blue, Meli loves all blues, my sister loves blue and I can't help but knit for her especially in blue since it looks so nice next to her bright blue eyes. My mother requested a blue scarf, my dad wants a Rams hat (dark blue and gold), and I've been planning to make a blue sweater for a year.

I want to cry.

The baby sweater, chenille, novelty yarn, sweater swatch, and mittens have been buried deep in the stash and the dishcloth frogged since no matter how soft and dreamy the yarns may be there's only so much blue a girl can take. To ease the monotony on my eyes I've cast on a narrow red fun fur scarf for the Stitch 'N' Pitch knit night at the baseball stadium. No pattern, just mindless garter in Cardinal Red to distract me from the blue and the fact that the MS3 is kicking my butt.


Maybe I can foist an Atlanta Falcons (red and black) colored cap off on TBT. They're his favorite team. Or maybe complete my Transformers reversible Autobots/Decepticons design. That would break the monotony. Or maybe I'll resume work on my Fire Engine Red EZ Pi Shawl too, or a yellow dishcloth.

Knitting Lessons: the new lessons are in green.

Important Knitting Lessons

1. Never believe a book or pattern when it says you can fudge the gauge on a fitted garment like a sweater, hat, or sock.
2. Always make a swatch using the stitch you'll be using for a sock no matter what the book or pattern notes say, even if it means multiple swatches (St st and pattern), and even if it's only for your own reference.
3. To preserve their sanity a knitter should have projects in a variety of weights, knitting styles, textures of yarn, difficulty, and project lengths in progress at the same time
4. To prevent the desire for self-impalement on their sock needles as a relief from the monotony a knitter should not forget the importance of varying the color family of the yarns in their various projects-in-progress.
5. In cleaning skyscraper windows, rock climbing, and most of all knitting intricate lace safety lines are NOT a stupid idea.

Misadventures in Knitting # 1

Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. I am a complete dumbass.

Following a basic sock formula for a woman whose feet are about 8.25 inches in circumference with a yarn and needles with which I received a 9.75 st/inch gauge on my nice swatch (and I like to swatch) for just over 80 stitches for the diameter, and since it's a four stitch pattern I went with 80 even. Sounds reasonable, right?

BZZZZT! WRONG!

According to the book I took the pattern from, Sensational Knitted Socks (bottom right of page 12 to be exact) one may use a sample of stockinette using the needles and yarn you are going to use and use that as an approximate gauge swatch, provided it was not one of the cable patterns. I was using a basic four-stitch and two row pattern without cables or lace or eyelets. Two columns of stockinette stitch, two columns of garter.

Come to find out the main pattern of the sock has a gauge much closer to 8.5 to 8.75 than 9.75. That leads to between 68 (64 for the pattern repeats) and just over 72 stitches circumference. Meaning that at that gauge there's an EXTRA INCH to the circumference. Rawr!

Now I am faced with two options, both of which have pros and cons. Option 1: Make two socks too large for the recipient even though I picked the yarn out special for them because they love the colors. Note that they'll be just about the ideal size for myself or Mel. Option 2: Frog out over 7,500 stitches and start over.

I lose either way. If I *do* frog it out I'll take a picture beforehand.

On that note, since I may as well have something positive come out of my misadventures I've decided to start catologing my mistakes and important knitting lessons learned the hard way. It'll be a growing list somewhere, probably on the left of my blog or maybe it's own page. I dunno yet.

• Important Knitting Lesson #1: Never believe a book when it says you can fudge the gauge on a fitted garment like a sweater, hat, or sock.
• Important Knitting Lesson #2: Always make a swatch using the stitch you'll be using for a sock no matter what the book or pattern notes say, even if it means multiple swatches (St st and pattern), and even if it's only for your own reference.

Otherwise my knitting has been productive. After finishing it (except for binding off) and sizing it on himself the Recipient of Da Scarf determined it needed to be longer by at least two feet. Argh. So that's at least another 6 stripes... 90 rows. Actually, this will be good practice for me to determine how long it will take to do 90 rows so I can plan something. The only down side is that I might need more yarn to complete this scarf. That's right, FOUR skeins of Red Heart may not be enough for a scarf. ...I can't remember smoking anything while designing this scarf but who knows, I may have.

Oddly enough, The Recipient is pleased with the thickness, saying his other scarves are never warm enough for him during the late season games. It's also way too wide, but again he's pleased with that too. ...No accounting for taste. But like the Samurai Knitter said around Christmas time: Knit what the recipient will like and enjoy if you want them to wear it.

The Boy Thing wants me to make him something next. Silly of the Boy Thing (he knows about the dreaded Sweater curse), but at the same time I've been considering making him a pair of Dashing gloves from Knitty. He lives in Georgia, but at the same time I know he gets cold because he whines about it. And I tell him "Fifty degrees? Pfft. Pansey. Talk to me when it's -15 with four feet of snow and a -35 windchill." Can you tell I spent my formative years in upstate NY?

I think that's enough for now. Maybe too much, considering noone reads my drivel.