Told ya

I started knitting late Friday. Temperature was in the 40s all weekend as I knit along. Finished the pair late Sunday, and the temperature continued to rise.

Although the weather was fair promising that the mittens were going to be a good fit, I had a few concerns. Namely:
1) I was not going off any sort of pattern. I measured my hand in a couple of places and increased/decreased as seemed reasonable. But still. My pattern looked like this:


2) I don't know the guage of shrinkage for this wool. I know it felts well from previous projects, but I've never actually written down *how much*. So I made up fudge factors (figuring ~30% shrinkage in length, ~20% in width) and added extra stitches/rows. But still, as I knit the things seemed huge. (At this point Brant's interest was piqued, and he offered to help me out if they were too big for me)



3) Different colors felt differently. I didn't have enough of the tan, so it was a choice between making only one mitten or adding in some scraps. So stash diving we went.

4) As if #3 wasn't enough, I've never felted stranded colors before. Stranding bulks up a section, so it could have gone either way. I didn't make any allowances or changes, just hoped for the best.

5) There is always a fudge factor for the cruel hand of knitting fate. And sitting down on a Friday evening with a scrap envelope, some yarn, and a desire for mittens by Monday is just begging to be struck down.

And yet despite all of this going into things,

I love them. The stranded sections melded into the nice transition between colors (as I was hoping), the brown/black striping on the thumb pleases me, and the black is mellowed out and much less contrasty than pre-felting.
And if that wasn't enough - the perfect mittens finished in just one weekend - yesterday the weather took a turn making them essential again.

Don't you just love March?
(yarn = Manos del Uruguay wool in tan, black, and a variegated brown)

Baseboards? What baseboards?

Sock knitting continues apace, the blue sock and the tan sock competing for my affections. One sock of each is finished up to the heel, and the blue sock is taking the lead (alpaca feels so much nicer in the hand than cotton!). But the tan sock is nagging me... And the orange socks, they're just such a simple pattern; I can work on them anywhere so they're cruising along guilt-free. Nothing much else on the needles, just the boss's baby's sweater waiting for a zipper. So many projects in the wings...

Another fun-filled home improvement weekend, and another set of learning points to add to the growing list.
1) When someone suggests you should rent an apartment, gut the house, and fix it all at the same time, don't completely laugh them off.
2) Always allow for the following time calculation: [amount of time estimated to complete project] + [amount of time estimated to complete project] x 3. This accounts for the time it takes to prepare the area before actually beginning the project. Our goal this weekend: put up baseboards in living room. Score? Zero baseboards installed. Time was instead spent on preparing walls and removing old baseboards.
3) Similarly, always allow for the following financial calculation: [estimated cost] x 3. This accounts for the little things you don't take into consideration, the things you didn't expect to have to deal with, and the unavoidable 2nd and 3rd trip to the hardware store.
4) If you finish the floor before you do the walls, you will damage the floor.
5) Outlet box, then drywall.
6) There's a reason some people stuff empty spaces with newspaper and use cardboard as drywall - it's really damn hard to do home improvement correctly. What's even harder is being the latter type of home owner in a house previously owned by the former.

I also insisted this weekend on purchasing my own set of basic tools, to be placed in a toolbox that no one but me can touch. Needless to say, one screwdriver is already missing, and I know without a shadow of doubt that I'm responsible. Damnit.

In the continuing parade of finished objects of recent months:

I love this hat, and it breaks my heart that it doesn't fit my head better. Further experimenting with blocking will hopefully change that.
Shedir hat by Jenna Wilson from special Knitty issue. Completed early January, knit almost entirely in Grenada.
Yarn: Special Alpaca yarn, purchased at NJ Fiber Festival
Needles: Size 3 16" circular
Modifications: None. I will probably tack up the front edge, as I like that it's long enough to cover my ears, but in the front it hits my eyebrows.
Would I make it again? Absolutely. A bit of a pain doing the cables with this yarn (not very forgiving), but the pattern was very clear and a joy to knit. Check out some of the other versions other people have made to see clearer stitch definition.

Are we ready?

Are we ready for a woman/black/hispanic president? This question was all over the news the past few weeks, and it's been slowly eating away at the patience in the back of my brain (that's where I store my patience, that's why I show so little of it). The fact that NPR (a "liberal" news media, though if they were so liberal why was this issue even a question?) did weekly segments on this topic for a month frustrated me. But what really threw me over the edge was the content of interviews from across the country. Women claiming that a woman couldn't be a good president, people of color denouncing a black man as president. But the most frequent complaint I hear isn't that female/black/hispanic individuals wouldn't make adequate presidents - (I mean come on, could they be worse than a guy whose basic qualification is a penchant for the game Risk?), it is that they aren't electable. Is that a reason that all of these countries should remain more progressive than the US? Bolivia? Panama? Freakin' Serbia? It is my belief that if the news media would quit making gender/race an issue, it would fall away. No, people won't neglect to realize that Hilary is a woman or that Barak is black, but maybe if we quit trumpeting the idea of "firsts" we could pay attention to what they say. "The first" is always scary (Remember pedaling your bike for the first time without mom/dad holding on? Wasn't it easier if you didn't realize until after you were halfway down the driveway that you were doing it on your own?). And if we must talk firsts, how about the first husband/wife couple to both be president? The first President born in Hawaii? The first president to have been raised in a foreign country?

In knitting news, things are going to be all socks all the time for a bit, so I'll be posting some finished objects that I haven't officially posted before:

in progress (the real color is somewhere in between these two pictures):

Aran Skirt from Vogue Winter 2005. Completed just in time for Thanksgiving 2006.
Yarn: Knitpicks Merino Style in Nutmeg, about 10 skeins (much less than the pattern called for)
Needles: Size 5 and 6 circulars
Modifications: Row guage was off, so fewer rows. I don't like sewing seams, so I sewed the sides and then picked up stitches to knit the waist section in the round. I also kind of made up the crochet stitch that attaches the elastic at the waist, and was pleased with the result (not sure I'd be able to replicate it, though). I've blocked it gently once, but might try again with actual pins. The weight of the yarn really lengthens the skirt, and the hem is uneven as the seams are more rigid than the rest.
Would I make it again? Only for a lot of money. I loved the cables and it's beautiful, but I was ready for it to be done long before it was wearable. Don't think I'd ever make another skirt out of 100% wool; it needs some cotton or other fiber to give more structure and reduce weight.

Socken it to the family

In place of holiday letters this year, I sent New Year's sock forms. Members of my family were encouraged, in the most knitterly way possible, to send me their shoe size and color preferences to be entered into a lottery for some hand knit socks. If everyone responds there will be far too many feet for my two little hands, but I'm already enjoying the interaction this has created - receiving the return letters in the mail, looking for patterns and yarn that suit individuals who are so far away and who I see so rarely.

I'm off to a slow start.
socks for the family

(KnitPicks Shimmer (Alpaca/Silk) in "Morning Mist" for one cousin and Stork (Cotton) "color #30" for one parent)

err...socks for me

(two color socks finished, orange socks using Jitterbug yarn given me by Cathy)

I'll add my progress to the sidebar. Now back to knitting - must go to work tomorrow, which really cuts into knitting time.