Twinknit

When I’m in the middle of writing — I mean when I’m really into it — I usually need something to keep my hands busy while my brain works.  I’ve knit many things this way and in the process I’ve found that the best knitting for writing is something simple and circular, but not too simple.  No stockinette, or my brain goes into a zen state where I stop thinking all together.  No, what I need is something that changes, but only every row or two. No long purl rows (i.e. no lace), no complicated travelling stitches (although, in the end, the Drunken Bee turned out to be a pretty good pattern for writing).  I need something engaging, but not distracting (and a variegated, beautiful yarn usually helps).  Enter the Anastasia socks.

Pattern: Anastasia socks, by Minty

Yarn: Claudia’s Handpainted, in a colorway I can no longer remember (lovely, lovely greens!)

Needles: US 1 dpns

Modifications: Well, obviously I omitted one eyelet row (I’m not much for lacey socks. One set of holes was quite enough, thank you.)  I got worried that they were going to be too small, so I modified the stitch count a little.  Now they are a wee bit on the loose side, but still totally wearable and comfortable.  And I think they are beautiful!  When  first finished them and put them on, I realized how long it had been since I finished an adult-sized FO just for me.  I love them.  And I finished them just as I turned in the bulk of chapter 3 to my dissertation group (thank you in advance for the words of optomistic encouragement on the fact that I am already on chapter three; unfortunately, I don’t write in order.  This is only the first chapter completed.  And it’s not even completed yet).

Now waiting to cast on for last-part-of-chapter-3-and-all-of-chapter-1 socks!

In the meantime, look at what else I’ve started (sorry non-ravelry folk.  It’s the christmas season!)

1. I am not a quitter. But when it comes to daily/weekly/monthly/yearly commitments, and when it comes to personal challenges, I think I’ve done my fair share. And so, it is with heavy heart, but not a small amount of relief, that I admit defeat when it comes to 365. I am officially joining the 365 for commitment-phobes — NOT, mind you, because I am afraid of commitment. But rather, I find myself committed to more important things at the moment.

2. I like knitting for friends and family. That said, I still haven’t finished my promised Christmas knitting from last year. And so I happily acknowledge that this year, there will be no Christmas knitting. Well… there will be four things knit for christmas this year — two small things, and two larger things. But that’s it.

3. I am preoccupied. And since I finally acknowledged some looming deadlines, I am also anxious and stressed (nothing like recognizing that you have four months to do a lot of writing. A. LOT.). I’ve been hauling ass to finish this chapter from hell (as I know affectionately refer to it) before Thanksgiving break, and as a result I have officially entered the absent minded phrase. With that in mind, I admit that it is going to be a while before the lovely Twisted Flower has a mate. Because honestly, I just don’t have enough brainspace to keep track of it.

Whew. I feel better.

FO tomorrow when my camera batteries are charged.

Today was an extrordinarily beautiful day - the perfect day for a photo shoot.  D and I went to Batram’s Garden, a West Philadelphia institution that I have managed never to visit in the five years I have lived here, despite the fact that it is only a few blocks from my house.  Perfect spot for a photo shoot.

This whole endeavor was genius — a small little swap in which we all knit one sock for our partner, and then send them the pattern and the yarn for the second sock, along with some goodies.  I had a wonderful time knitting my Bombay Drunk Bee for my partner.  It was a terrific excuse to knit an insanely challenging pattern; afterall, you only have to knit one.  For some reason, throughout the whole process, I lost track of the fact that someone would be knitting a sock for me.  Which was why when this came in the mail:

I almost cried.  You see, with the exception of a truly lovely hat knit for me by my mommy, no one has ever knit me anything before.  Not to mention a knit from a total stranger.  And it’s beautiful.  See –

Look at that heel!

And the twisted cables?

This sock is everything lovely.  And if that weren’t enough, it even came with a matching (ha!) project bag.  I’m not going to lie — when these started sweeping the blog-o-sphere, I didn’t really get it.   But now that I have one, I realize that the plastic ziploc that had been housing my sock projects just doesn’t cut it.  I heart this bag with an unhealthy love and I’ve already totally moved in to it (now I need a few more…)  Thank you, Sandra!

Now I need to get the second one of these off my needles so that I can start the mate to this pretty pretty precious.

…come at the perfect time. I’m home sick today and generally feel like crap (kicking myself for not getting a flu shot yet. Fingers crossed this isn’t the flu). Here’s a sneak peak at what made me feel better:

More tomorrow when I can give the sock and it’s accompanying goodies the photo-treatment they deserve.

It’s hard for me these days not to think of Thursday as “the end.” I teach for the last time each week on Thursday. I have four days before I have to teach again, four days with no prep, no need to be on campus, no hard-and-fast deadlines. I constantly need to remind myself that Thursday is not the end — Friday still looms, a real day, a business day. Perhaps this will be easier for me to remember as today I am officially “signed up” to graduate. Yep. I filled out the forms (temporarily considering having them put “Professor Smarty-Pants” on my diploma, but settling for the more pragmatic “Jennie”), made an appointment to turn in my diss to the office of arts and sciences (the latest possible day. That’s what you get when you make your appointment six months early — Choice. And Time.), and even constructed a calendar of when I need to finish chapters in order finish on time.

Gulp.

It’s no wonder I decided it was ok to come home early and knit for a little while. I’m trying to tie up loose ends this month, before working on new projects (namely Tangled Yoke, which has been put in time out due to unsolvable gauge issues — how could I possibly be getting 4.5 st/in on both 3.5 mm and 3.25 mm needles?!?). And so I present you the latest long-time WIP to become an FO:

Pattern: Top Down Baby Bonnet from Hello Yarn

Yarn: Sundara Sport Weight Merino, from back in the day when her colors had numbers (can’t remember anymore which one this is)

Needles: US 3, 3.25 mm dpns

Thoughts: Well, love the yarn, love the pattern, love the result. It’s super easy, takes next to no yarn (I have plenty left over for a pair of booties, maybe even too if my recent history with miraculous yarn-yardage continues). I opted out of the ears and face, but now I feel like it’s a little plain. What do you think? I love the very, very slight variation in the yarn — it has such depth. I know it’s a serious color for a baby, but sometimes I get tired of pastels. Maybe baby does too?

Pattern: Drunken Bees, from Domesticrafts

Yarn: Koigu KPPM, in what I call “Bombay Sapphire”

Needles: US 1 dpns

Thoughts/Modifictions: Man. This pattern rocks. It’s so squishy and crazy and complicated-looking. But really, it’s one of the most fun knits I’ve done in a while, even with four different attempts. This sock is for a friend — a friend with bigger feet than my own. This posed a unique challenge, as the pattern-as-written combined with my yarn-of-choice were creating a sock that comfortably fit my foot, but would have stretched badly on my friend’s foot. So I ripped. I tried knitting with larger needles, but this produced a fabric that was way too loose. Rip again. Then I decided to try knitting toe-up to alleviate my growing fear that I was going to run out of yarn. But again, it was going to take a great deal of fudging and rewriting and I didn’t want to mess with it. So finally, I started again, this time on smaller needles, but with an additional purl column added to every existing purl column. While this messed with the tightness of the buzzing pattern, I think it turned out pretty well.

My favorite part is the side-detailing on the foot. The pattern as written is pretty free, leaving the experienced knitter with a lot of choices. One of these choices was to continue the drunken “cable” on six stitches down the side of the honey-comb pattern. While you have to fudge the stitches a little to make it work, I totally think it was worth it.

I *love* the way it turned out, and I hope my pal does too, as she gets to knit the second one! Hurrah for an easy FO.

… I seem to have dropped off the face of you!

I’ve been struggling with technology  lately.  I don’t know if it is because I spend a lot of time in front of the computer for “work,” or because I’ve been at conferences and having meetings and travelling and generally experiencing life, but — for some reason at the end of the day, I just don’t feel like uploading pictures to flickr.  And I flat-out refuse, apparently, to blog with out pictures.

The truth is that I miss blogging.  But it’s a sad day when blogging has to go on your to-do list.

So I’m trying to find a way to find the love again — or rather, find the time in my day to make space for blogging and make space for flickr so that it doesn’t feel like work.  Because I seriously, seriously miss my online community.  I’ve been keeping up with you guys — at least for the most part (although my bloglines is embarassingly high after a weekend out of town).  In the meantime, there has been knitting.

Lots of knitting.

(Sad that I didn’t manage to finish a sock during the entirety of socktoberfest, eh?).  This beauty will be finished tonight if it kills me (I’m a lot furhter along than it seems in this picture… this is from a few days ago.  See what I mean about not wanting to deal with flickr?).  It’s for a friend, who will finish the second herself.  If only her feet were a wee bit smaller…

Two weeks?  Really?  I can’t believe it has been two weeks since I last posted.  That should give you some idea of how much not-better things have been since my last post.  I’ve been suffering from a pretty severe case of overwhelm.  Midterm grading and conference deadlines are not helping.  That said, I think that the lack of internet community hasn’t helped my general malaise, and so I am rededicating myself to blogging and other internet related activities.

A good start?  Blog meet-up extraordinaire.  Today, I met with Minty, my local Philistine, and Specs for lunch at the Kingdom of Vegetarians.  In addition to encountering more dim sum than you can shake a stick at (where, oh where does this particular phrase come from and why does it make absolutely no sense), we chatted it up for a few hours.  I didn’t manage to get a picture of the four of us together, but did snap this one:

Oh, how nice to be in an environment where no one thinks you’re strange for taking pictures of food!  And I’d like to add, for the record, how wonderful it is to personally meet the people behind the blogs I read.  I’m ceaselessly amazed at the degree to which these “strangers” immediately feel like old friends.  I had a wonderful time today.

I have knitting news, but I’m going to ease back in to blogging and save it for tomorrow.

… but i’ve been drowning a little.  I haven’t blogged in forever.  I’m behind on bloglines.  I’ve stopped commenting on the blogs I do manage to read.  I haven’t gotten more than 6 hours of sleep at night in over a week.  I’m falling into the pit of mid-semester.

I’m pulling myself out of it and (fingers crossed) should at least be more than one nostril above water by the end of the week.  Just wanted to let you know that:

a) i’m still here.

b) there’s been knitting.

c) hopefully there will soon be a pattern (!).  Want a (badly photographed) teaser?

d) I’ve gotten things together enough to read a few blogs at night before bed and in the morning.  Everyone is knitting such inspiring things.  Hopefully I’ll get it together enough to start commenting!

And now?  To bed.  Thursdays are 6 a.m. mornings these days.  Oh grading papers, how I hate thee!

Sigh. Today I turned this:

[please ignore the kitty paw prints all over my window sill… it’s their favorite place to sit.  Note to self: wash window sills]

into this:

I *heart* the pattern. I *heart* the yarn. But the pattern looks much, much better when it’s not streatched the max, and it was streatching to the max. So — I’ll reknit. As soon as I have the strength to restart that chart. Give me a few days to get a grip. Ripping this one out hurt!