January One -- Nona's Serial Gloves
November 09, 2005
Put Your Hand Together
First off, I want to brag about the time I spent yesterday with one Baby Xavier and his family. I'll tell you, what that kid lacks in size (he's a teeny one!) he sure makes up with cuteness! And oh my god he is to die for in his Koigu hat. Makes Aunt Cara's heart go pitter pat. Thanks Jen for letting me hang yesterday. It was so good to see all of you home and so, so happy!
Secondly, I'm anxious and pmsy today. I didn't sleep well last night - my imagination often gets the better of me. I'm feeling overwhelmed about the amount of work I have to do - I was feeling positive on Monday and didn't get enough done yesterday and now I have to prepare for class all day today - so I'm behind again.
And I seem to have hit an impasse on Nona's Superfabulous Serial Gloves. I tried putting the fingers all together last night in anticipation of the thumb gusset entry to come soon, and well, I was decidedly underwhelmed. The first couple times I worked it I got some nice big holes. I kept trying to KTBL to tighten things up but that seemed to have the opposite effect. After two tries, I decided that maybe I needed to go down a needle size and knit reallyreallyreally tight to eliminate the holes. (I mean, what's the sense of having gloves with holes between the fingers right - kind of built in air conditioning for the winter - not so nice.)
So I tried it on size #2s. And things went pretty well - I even got so far as to add the pinky and do a few rows. Then I stopped to inspect my work - I still had what appeared to be holes between the fingers. I'm not so sure now. I think underneath what looked like a hole were the stitches that come across the two circs to make the barrier if you will between the finger holes. It's what covers the webbing between your fingers (do you have webbing? I do. It's a hereditary thing I think. My sister barely has any.) I was all ready to accept this as the way it's SUPPOSED to be when I discovered some disturbingly loose stitches on the index finger at the join. After playing with it for a bit, trying to tighten things up, I decided it wasn't good enough and ripped. That's when I went to bed last night fondling the super easy Sunshine Sock I had stolen the size two needles from - ah stockinette. You call to me. My plan in the near future (I MUST WORK!) is to try again with the size #3s and knit reallyreallyreally tight. I'll let you know how it goes - in the meantime, any tips or tricks or reassurance I was doing it right would be greatly appreciated.
I got mail yesterday. Help, please.
Cotton Candy and Pebbles. Lots of it. Mmmmm. Socks That Rock. Thanks Toni!
ETA: The reason I bought two skeins of each is because this is Soft Rock and comes in skanks of 200yds. You need two. The Fire on the Mountain and Rock Star came in skeins of 325yds - you only need one. I specifically asked for two of the smaller skeins because I want to make nice long stockinette PINK cotton candy socks!
ETA2: All my STR yarn comes from Toni at The Fold. Tell her I sent you. (Sorry Toni! ;-) )
Posted by Cara at 09:26 AM | Comments (13)
November 08, 2005
Finger Fusion
You know how when you get an idea in your head AND IT JUST WON'T GO AWAY? I'm talking about the good kind - not the kind where you walk in the kitchen and every single appliance and/or innocuous tool suddenly can do grave bodily harm - no, I'm talking about the kind where no matter how much work you need to get done - you just can't UNTIL YOU TRY NONA'S FINGER FUN!
After reading Nona's second installment in the Serial Glove pattern, I couldn't help myself. In my defense, I did run (check out One One Run for my progress - I'm running 20 minutes total now!) and do some work (I got about half a job finished) before I cast on for my first Idiot Cord Finger.
There was a problem though. Nona tells you not to be concerned about the ladders traveling up the back of your finger I-Cord because you twist a stitch at the top and work it down the ladder - it becomes another stitch. Okay - ingenious, I'll agree - but the problem was that it was very loose. Too loose for my taste. And the stitches to either side of the ladder were also loose. I emailed Nona with the problem - and she said she had it too. She told me she was knitting the I-cord very tightly then massaging the stitches into a better place. She also told me to check out Purly Whites - she had knit the fingers using two-circulars instead of an i-cord. Hmmmm. Sounds interesting.
So I went to Purly Whites - she indeed had a fix for my ladder problem. She used a turkish cast on and set to make her fingers. Okay. I'll try that.
Not so much.
The turkish cast on confused me to no end (and I was only casting on six stiches!) I wasn't sure where to go with it after I had it cast on (I'm a little stupid.) I went back to the I-cord method. After working a few rows and all of my increases...EUREKA! Why not put it on the circulars NOW? Then I only have to pick up like four or five ladders and I can knit the rest on my circulars! So I tried it.
Here you see the front of the pinky finger.
Here you see the back.
(Any wonkiness is purely my own knitting.)
It WORKED! So I set about making the rest of the hand. FYI, I used the large size finger instructions - I don't think my fingers are all that big, but the first few mess ups in the medium size were a bit tight - so I went for the large. The thumb was actually the large index finger transformed - it was way too big for my finger and only slightly big on my thumb. Don't my fingers look cute?
Today, after I do some work, I'm moving on to Installment #2. Time to join it all together! YAY! I'm so happy about this project. I've had this Koigu in my stash for a while and it just didn't seem right for socks. I don't know. The colors are so muted and I wanted something ELSE for it. Gloves are perfect! They will match my winter jacket (which is a one of those unidentifiable reddish purple but not really purple but with a lot of blue kind of colors. I'd hate to call it burgundy. It's definitely not a rust. Whatever - pictures will follow when there's a finished glove.) And it's going very, very quick! Five fingers in a night - and most of that time I didn't know what I was doing (like always, ALWAYS knit through the back loop when doing an M1. No matter how you pick up the bar, KNIT THROUGH THE BACK LOOP. Otherwise you WILL get a hole. DUH!) I'm hoping for a pair of gloves very, very soon. Stayed tuned!
Hey, did you know - today's election day. Whoohoo! You know why I'm so happy? It's because THEY WILL FINALLY STOP CALLING ME EIGHTY SEVEN MILLION TIMES A DAY!!!!! My sister is always bitching about elections - she lives in a swing state a lot of the time (PA) and they often have some very hotly contested races (think anyone who wants to ANNIHILATE BEAT Santorum) but NJ - well - we're usually on one side or the other so people leave us alone. Not this year. This year we've got a governor's race going on that WON'T QUIT! I'm so tired of it I almost DON'T want to vote. But I will.
I thought it was pretty cool the other day when I picked up the phone and heard "Hi. This is Bill Clinton." (Use your best Daryl Hammond southern drawl.) But my brother one-upped me yesterday when he told me he got a call from Warren Beatty asking him to vote against Arnold Schwarzenegger. Only in LA, kids. Only in LA.
I leave you with this final parting shot:
My version of Fuck You. HAHAHAHAHA!
(Oh and Bloglines? You too.)
Posted by Cara at 10:01 AM | Comments (15)