DPN DISASTER!

November 22, 2004 By

I settle down for the evening, Shedir in hand, eagerly anticipating it’s finish. Nope. Sorry. Not to be.

I was flying along, decreasing left, decreasing right, the beautiful star pattern taking shape under my fingers. I had reached row 71 when it was clear I need to switch to the dpns. Now, I’ve mentioned before that I’ve never used them. So I called Jen. She wasn’t home – probably out knitting with the girls in her neighborhood. So I consult my Vogue Knitting: the Ultimate Knitting Book. Got to say, not really that helpful. I pop on the Internet – looking for a good video or something. I find something that says you use the extra needles to knit (insert deep blush here). Ah. Now it makes more sense. So I go back and I start knitting. Except it’s all purl stitches now and for some reason I cannot do the purl when going from one needle to the next. (In the end I purled the last stitch on one needle then slipped it to the next – seemed to work.) In the meantime – I don’t realize it but I’m dropping stitches all over the place. Calmer is really hard to grab when you’ve dropped a stitch, especially on size three needles. The yarn splits really easily. Now I’ve got needles everywhere, cable needles trying to grab lost stitches and I’m about to start crying. I try to move the stitches back to the circulars so I can feel like I have more control as I try to pick up these lost babies – but the pattern is so funky I can’t tell where things have been knit, or purled or twisted or cabled and now I’m really crying. The only thing I can see to do is RIP IT OUT!

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Filed Under: Shedir

Flight Attendants, prepare for landing….

November 21, 2004 By

Warning: lots of pictures!

Well, the decreasing has begun (hence the bad joke in the title). Yesterday I made great progress on the Shedir – I finished all of the repeat rounds and started my initial decrease. I’m up to row 58. I think it will start to move very fast now because each row you decrease more and more. Which is good because I feel like I’m starting to run out of yarn.

I’m a little nervous about having to switch to DPNs. I’m not sure when to do it, and I’m not sure how to do it, but I’m up for the challenge.

I wrote yesterday that I finished the back of G’s vest. Here’s a picture:

The color’s a little off. My carpet’s actually brown, not gray. I think the blue is a little bright as well. I’ve decided to cast on for the front once the Shedir is finished – definitely before the train to Philly for Thanksgiving. I want to work on that while I’m traveling.

I was busy with Melanie while she was here – I decided I absolutely needed to find beads to go on the end of my geometric scarf – the pattern has a really nice long bead on each corner. So while we were in the city, we went looking for beads. (It was a good compromise because the bead store was around the corner from Anthropologie and Melanie was very happy there!) I, alas, wasn’t so happy with the bead store – I couldn’t find anything that fit what was in my imagination. But then I had an idea – what about some cheap bead jewelry? So off to Target we went. I was also in search of those Hello Kitty stitch markers. Really, I had stitch markers on my mind. I wanted to make some pretty knitty jewelry. Continue for the pretty knitty jewelry!

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Filed Under: George's Vest, Shedir

Back down, front to go

November 19, 2004 By

Between Melanie visiting and two jobs this week, I haven’t had a lot of time to knit. Add into that Moveable Type and forget it. I still haven’t figured out this blog stuff. I can’t get it to do what I want and I don’t have the energy to figure it out. There are so many blog layouts I like out there, but I can’t get mine to look anywhere close. I know I can figure it out eventually, but honestly, I’d rather be knitting.

I did manage to finish the back of G’s vest. At first I was freaked because the stitch count didn’t work out right, but when I realized that I was exactly 11 stitches short (which is the cable repeat) I figured out the problem. It’s called a bad memory and lousy math skills. I originally cast on 93 stitches for the rib, then increased 11 stitches for the body. Somehow I thought I had gotten it up to 115, which is the small size the patterns calls for. Duh. Everything’s okay now. I’m still a little nervous that it won’t be wide enough, but it will certainly be long enough. Hopefully blocking it will help. I’m going to cast on for the front and finish the rib and then I’m moving on to the Shedir. I want that finished soon.

Filed Under: George's Vest

blog, blog, blog, blah, blah, blah

November 16, 2004 By

Let the obsessing begin!

My shrink always says that personality traits are like two sides of a coin – sometimes they work for good, and sometimes they work for evil. For instance, the single mindedness, the obsession that helps me have a singular vision for things, and in turn, helps me to achieve so much that I want to do, can turn around and bite me in the ass. When my grandmother taught me to knit one rainy afternoon, she gave me some bent needles and some horrid, scratchy day-glo orange yarn and the blinders came down. I went home with that yarn and knit and knit until I had swatch after swatch of knit and purl. Until I could do it with my eyes closed. We’re talking many hours here, until my hands cramped. To show you how ridiculous I am, my first project was a basketweave baby blanket. My second project – a 5’x6′ slip stitch afghan using four colors. I am INSANE!

So now I’m obsessed with my blog. I decided that the name Purls of Wisdom isn’t really me. It’s pretentious, really, because I don’t know how wise this blog will ever be and moreso it doesn’t reflect my personality at all. So I bought (yet another) domain name. january one The more I think about it, it’s a perfect name for my blog. January 1 is my birthday, and has always been a really large part of my identity. And januaryone.com was available! Yeah for me.

I buy the freaking domain and I buy freaking MovableType and I’m all set to go and I can’t get it to be what I want. I feel like I’ve wasted two days already. I know eventually I’ll get there – I’ve built more than one website in my life – but there are so many other things I want to be doing rather than figuring all this out. I just want it to be done. I want to be knitting and talking about knitting, not obsessively thinking about my knitting blog. I need to flip the coin.

I haven’t touched the Shedir in days and I have probably two repeats before I can bind off the back of Georgie’s vest. He’s very happy with it though, so I’m happy about it. It’s hard for me to have more than one project going at a time – I never know where to spend the time.

One of the things about knitting, though, that I really love – and I’m only realizing this today – is that you can actually achieve what you see in your mind. I haven’t begun to even think about attempting to design something on my own, so maybe the difficulty is really there – but I get such satisfaction from following a pattern and having the yarn actually become what the pattern looks like. Everywhere else in my creative life, whether it be my writing or my photography, there is such a huge disconnect between what my mind sees and what actually appears in reality. The camera, in the end, is only a substitute for the eye. And the writing, well, that’s what makes writing so hard. You can never get on paper what’s living in your heart.

Best,
Cara

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

Loathe thy Neighbor

November 13, 2004 By

WARNING: No knitting content.

Okay, so we live in an apartment building. We’ve actually lived in this building for the last 13 years (OH MY GOD!), but in this particular apartment for 7. Well, we had this elderly gentleman for a next door neighbor until about a month ago. He was relatively quiet and besides the occasional TV too late at night, was the perfect neighbor. Never seen or heard from.

The peace is no longer.

We have new neighbors. Up until last night, our major concern was their cooking. It stinks. I don’t care how good the food tastes in your mouth, when it travels through the HVAC and infests my bedroom and my closet (yes, my clothes are starting to stink!) all those delicious edibles turn to crap. That’s what it smells like. Crap. Okay, fine, if I crack the window the bedroom odors clear out real quick. But it’s getting cold and we don’t know what to do.

Last night, though, they decided to have a little get together. I don’t care if you think I’m a stodgy fool, I want to go to sleep when I want to go to sleep. In their infinite wisdom, the architects of this building designed it so the bedrooms back up against the next door dining room. Most people don’t dine in the middle of the night. But these people had a party. A party people. And it went on and on and there was laughing and yelling and 1AM turned into 3AM which turned into 5FUCKINGAM. My earplugs weren’t working anymore so I went to sleep on the couch. Georgie seemed to be asleep as he was snoring away (poor baby has a cold). I never actually fell asleep and got up from the couch to get some water. On my way, I opened the front door – you could hear the noise all the way down the hallway.

Making my way back to the couch, I noticed the light was on in the bedroom. G had already called the doorman to complain, yet again. So back to the bedroom I went. We watched William Hurt and Lee Marvin in Gorky Park for a while (the one time I would’ve liked at least an attempt at a fake accent), but flipped around and found Frantic, one of my all time favorite movies. Then we fell asleep. Finally. At around 6. Completely unacceptable.

What do we do? We talked about moving. But we really can’t afford it and we don’t really want to, at least not right now. Plus, it seems so unfair that we’d have to move because of rotten neighbor circumstances. I love my apartment – it’s home in every sense of the word. And we are pretty much homebodies. I work out of my home when I’m not teaching or on a shoot, which is most of the time.

HELP! We’re hoping the all-nighter was a once in a long while thing, but how do we get rid of the smells? Does anyone know of any good room deodorizers that won’t trade one bad smell for another equally horrid, too perfume smell. My husband, my clothes and I thank you for one and all suggestions.

Okay. Rant over. I’m tired. Thanks.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

Progress

November 12, 2004 By

The Shedir is coming along nicely. I’m just about finished the second pattern repeat – it’s going pretty quickly now. I had some trouble on round #25 – I must have purled where I needed to knit or something – but it was easily remedied by taking out the equivalent to one round. All fixed now. Here are some pictures:

I’ve decided to give the hat to Jen’s friend who starts chemo next week. I figure if I like it I can always make another one, but I’d rather this one is used in the spirit with which the pattern was written.

I was in the mood for pictures this morning, so here are a few more. This is what I’ve been doing with my Noro Silk Garden #84:

I found the stitch pattern on the web, but soon realized I had it at home in one of my Harmony Stitch Books. It’s about 21″ wide pre-blocked – I’m thinking it will stretch out a little bit more after blocking. I also have visions of lots of fringe. I’m hoping it will be quite elegant when it’s finished. I have about two skeins left to go.

I decided to throw caution to the wind and go with the Peruvian Collection Highland Wool for the Ribby Cardi. Here’s the color palette I chose:

grape heather antique blue

I’m excited about it. I read a rumor that there will be a Ribby Cardi knitalong in the New Year, so there’s an ETA for the sweater.

It’s rainy and cold today. Perfect for knitting.

Filed Under: Noro Silk Garden Wrap, Ribby Cardi, Shedir

Something for everyone!

November 11, 2004 By

Try XM Radio for free for a few days! It’s really nice – especially since my external harddrive with all of my thousands of Napster downloads crashed the other day. I miss my music! There are a gazillion stations – definitely something for everyone. I haven’t quite figured out which station is my favorite – but I’ve been listening to a lot of the 80’s, the Loft, Top Tracks – I did hear Bruce three times this morning, which is ALWAYS a good thing.

I’m toying with the idea of one of those 100 lists. I haven’t figured out how to put a sidebar on the left of my blog. There MUST be a way. Still tinkering. Once I do, I’ll probably do that 100 thing. We’ll see.

A day out with Jen is always fun…and expensive! We hit the new Majestic Yarns store in Ridgewood, New Jersey on Tuesday. It’s owned by Berta Karapetyan – I’m pretty sure she was there, knitting away – who founded the Karabella Company. If you want Karabella Yarns, this is the place to go.

Before we left I had received my box from Patternworks with Koigu – not what I wanted (it’s already on it’s way back). The yarn certainly felt nice, but it was darker and not solid enough for the scarf I’d like to make. But Berta had what I wanted: Magritte in color #11, ice blue. It’s really soft, a little more expensive than necessary, but it will certainly do the trick.

I also bought a ball of Aurora 8, which I need to swatch as a test for the Oscar de la Renta sweater. I’m determined to make that thing, even if I never wear it!

Jen bought some nice Soft Tweed in color #1100 (RED!) for a post-Xmas poncho. It was really soft – I wish I had seen it before the Jo Sharp Tweed, but alas.

Then we moved onto the Container Store where I exchanged the storage boxes I had bought the LAST time we went out and bought some new under the bed containers. These should work well. Melanie‘s coming next week, so that gives me extra incentive to put things away, not to mention clean my toilets.

Oh and I found something to do with the Valeria di Roma angora (after I purchased three more balls)! I’m going to attempt the Heartstrings Flared Lace Smoke Ring. I found it blogsurfing – Too Much Wool has some great tips too!

I also bought the ChickKnits Ribby Cardi pattern that seems to be the rage right now. I really like the blank front panel and ribbed sides, but is it blasphemous to try to put a hood on it? I showed it to Georgie and he said what’s your obsession with hoods, I like it without, but I really do like hoods. And if it has a hood on it I can call it a hoodie! (I think I just like the word honestly – it makes me think of a bunny.) I’m not sure about the Peruvian Collection Highland Wool at elann though. I need this thing to be SOFT! It sure would be cheap though.

Last, but not least, I started the Shedir. I’ve done 15 rows. It’s not bad so far, but my god those needles are small. How do people knit on those 0s and 1s? The needles barely fit in my fingers. It’s making the vest go better though – I think I’m about ready to start shaping the armholes. I’ve got about 17″ right now.

Whew!

Filed Under: Miscellaneous, Ribby Cardi, Shedir

Get over yourself!

November 8, 2004 By

Sites like this just feed my awful perfectionist tendencies. Isn’t it enough to make a nice sweater that your nephew wants to wear to school every day? Why do you have to be the best at everything?!? It’s supposed to be fun right?

And while I’m asking rhetorical questions, who were those people at the Oil Baron’s Ball? That’s what Georgie and I kept asking ourselves. Who are these people that dressed in black tie to dance with the cast of Dallas? It was freaky.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

As promised…

November 7, 2004 By

Here’s the progress on G’s vest:

(I swear, this blogging thing is a humbling experience. I take the *worst* product shots! Now stick some people in the pictures and I’m a-okay.)

I’ve got about 12 inches done – the pattern says to start shaping at 16.5, but I think I’m going to go another inch. He wants it a little longer.

And here’s my first felting project:


Done in Cascade 220 – I can’t remember the colors and can only find one wrapper – for the brown (#9408). It’s my interpretation of the booga bag. I basically doubled the bottom number of rows and knitted it using two strands for a strength. Then I knit up at least double the rows, probably more. I’m really happy with how it came out. I used US 10.5 Addis.

Thanks must go to Jen for showing me her lovely booga. I think this is a really great project for a beginning knitter. The hardest part is picking up the stitches, which is really pretty easy and then it’s just knit, knit, knit. And the finished product is so nice. Something other than the usual scarf.

Filed Under: Felted Bags, George's Vest

So Adventurous I’ll be…

November 7, 2004 By

with that one ball of Calmer I picked up at Rosie’s Yarn Cellar. I’d love to make the Shedir in Knitty’s special breast cancer supplement. It looks so challenging and intimidating, but I know the finished product will be an accomplishment for me. Just following along with the chart will be enough!

I want to knit something for my little sister – we talked yesterday and I think she’d so appreciate it. I was thinking of the Klaralund, but when I showed it to her she didn’t seem totally enthused. I’m thinking maybe a vintage knit. She’s into vintage. Maybe a nice girly cardigan from the 50s. I’ll have to start looking.

I would LOVE these two layette books from Bouton D’Or. So sophisticated. Hard to find though – if anyone knows a good place in the US to get these books I’d love to hear from you!

Hopefully I’ll receive my Koigu from Patternworks tomorrow. And these hello kitty stitch markers are a must! Do you think they have them in Dora? I think I’d prefer Dora. I’ve been looking for cool stitch markers too.

Last but not least, a big THANK YOU to Becky! I’m new to this blogging thing and it’s nice to be noticed – especially for the knitting, but also for the photography! Thanks for the link. I appreciate it.

Must do some work. Next up: Pictures of progress on Georgie’s Vest. And possibly some booga bags.

Filed Under: Shedir
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