Can you fall in love twice?

I am so giddy that I can't even wait for a good picture, so I'm posting a crappy cameraphone shot:



This is my newest sock, Caledonian Mist from Pink Lemon Knits in Handmaiden Casbah in Peacock. On Ravelry I am calling it my crown jewels socks because several inches ago, when it was just the cuff and a few rows of pattern beneath it, it really did look like a crown with little jewels stuck on it.

I really thought this colorway was going to be a disaster - I actually was trying to get Casbah in Topaz or Peridot, I can't remember which, and it turned out they were out so when they called me, I took a quick look at the site and named a colorway without much thought. It looks pretty enough in the skein but when I wound it I was terrified. I thought, this is going to be awful. I wound it with the full intention of casting it on that night, and then I didn't. It sat there forever and ever while I knit other socks and then finally, Tuesday night I needed a new sock project and this one was already ready, so I cast it on and there I went and what do you know? The pattern is magic. It turned this colorway into something spectacular. My biggest concern about it was the yellow - I was sure I was going to hate the yellow. Well, it NEEDS the yellow, otherwise it would look so muddy. The little yellow passed over stitches pop against the dark background, and it just looks fantastic. I'm so thrilled. And it's FAST! Apparently I can yarn over and pass a stitch over faster than I can switch from knit to purl and back again, or something. I don't know. All I know is that I am speeding through this and the yarn, OMG, the yarn is so wonderful. The sock feels like velvet. I may never knit with another yarn again.

But, of course, rain comes along with the rainbow, and I do have some Concerns. The first is the cuff, which is done in seed stitch bordered by two rows of garter. It is pretty and I like it, and it was a lot more fun than never-ending ribbing (although I really thought that, with the chocolate waffle scarf and all, I would rather slit my throat than ever do seed stitch ever again), but it doesn't pull in the way that ribbing does, so while it stretches outward just fine, it doesn't really pull in, so I am going to have to be sure to make this sock long enough to go up to an area of my calf wide enough to fill out and stretch that cuff. I have had issues in the past with sock length. My sock length is always determined by how far I can get the sock up my calf without cutting off my circulation or bursting the cast-on.

I am worried about the yarn itself being a little too thick, as well - I definately could not switch down a needle size and still have fabric that would, you know, bend and stuff, but I don't have as much negative ease (is that the right term?) as I would really like to be comfortable with. we'll see - if I make it through the heel turn and it is still properly snug, I'll be fine. I'm just afraid I am walking the line between guage being too tight and the sock being too loose and I love this yarn so much that I will DIE if I cannot get it to knit correctly.

I really thought I could not love anything as much as the merino/tencel blend in the last socks, but these will just be so comfortable and soft. I also suspect they will be like a furnace for one's feet, but I'm sure that will come in handy with winter coming on.

More to blog but I'm out of time and it will have to wait.

Feeling accomplished

We've been at the beach for the past 4 days so I don't have any pictures of the knitting, but I'm very pleased with the outcome of the weekend. The embossed stitch socks are complete (except for the kitchener on the toe of the last sock, I didn't have the instructions with me and didn't want to mess it up). On the way home, I used some of the leftover yarn and knitted a toe cover for the SO's mom, who has torn a tendon in her heel and is now in a cast. I had planned to make one when we got home, as soon as I heard she was in a cast, but she was asking for one while we were still out there, so I figured I might as well do it on the car ride home. I didn't quite finish before we made it to their house, but I did finish shortly afterward and we left her with crab cakes and happily covered toes. The cover was a little short, but I made a note and I will make her a longer one at a more leisurely pace (and likely with thicker yarn).

I started another pair of plain socks for her with some Knit Picks essential that I had in my stash that, frankly, I don't particularly care for. The colorway is Riverbed Multi and I just didn't care for it that much. It sounds awful that I am pawning off yarn I don't like, but since she is getting a pair of socks out of it, I am not feeling too guilty. I also have a skein of Cherry Tree Hill in Indian Summer that I will never wear but that I think she would like, so that's designated "socks for Karen" as well.

I feel like I should knit my own mother socks, but I am kind of ambivalent as to how they would be received. We'll see. If nothing else, my mother has very small feet, so it shouldn't be much work to make her some! I'll see if I can get some yummy cushy Casbah for her and make some Christmas socks out of it or something.

I did no lace knitting at all over the weekend, so I'm way behind on MS4. Oh well...I don't really mind too much. The only thing that is kind of nagging my brain is the idea of Christmas looming. Eee!!!

Ribbit ribbit.

I was going to wait until I had pictures, but the way the week is going, things are not looking promising, so I'm posting anyway.

I frogged the mystery stole back to the first beaded row. I ran a lifeline through the 2nd setup row, which is beaded at ever other stitch, and then I pulled the whole thing out. I put the row back on my needles and picked it back, removing that last set of beads (that part was painful). I'd finally been to 7beads.com and ordered the Montana luster beads that I should have ordered when my instinct told me to way back when. This time instead of placing the beads on the stitch right after it was knit, I am placing the beads before I purl the stitch on the following wrong side row. I am, overall, a much happier knitter. I greatly prefer the look of the beads, the fabric is much more even and neat, and I am knitting along more speedily and peacefully than before. The stop and start process of putting the beads on was driving me crazy before, but somehow it is much more palatable to stop and do them on a wrong side row full of plain purling, than it was to try and do it on a lace row. I felt a little nagging guilt because the designer has said repeatedly that she feels the fabric looks better if you place the bead as you knit the stitch so that the stitch can stretch to accomodate that bead - but either this, or something about the process of stopping to put on the bead, just made the fabric around the bead look loosey goosey and awful. Just goes to show, I guess, that knitting is always subject to preference and personal style. Clue 2 has been released and I think it is lovely, so I'm looking forward to it. The difference in how I feel about the project really is amazing, and I have to say...

I'm glad I ripped it out. I'm glad I started over. I'm glad I did it my way.

It's a mystery

MS4 is not going well for me. This is not the fault of the designer at all, it's totally a me thing. I'm not feeling happy with my choices, or my work.

I was kind of doubting myself already after a conversation with the SO's mom on Thursday, and then I looked at some pictures on Ravelry of people who had completed clue one (IN ONE DAY - I mean, it was only 30 rows, but still - all those freaking beads) and there was one in yellow with sort of topaz beads that was absolutely beautiful and I started to have a freakout over whether my bead choice was really a good idea. Most people seems to be doing tone on tone from the pictures I've seen. My yarn is blue and my beads are white (technically, 'old ivory,' but whatever, they're white), and I was just worried. I did swatch, but the beads were spread out across my swatch, not grouped together the way they are on the real thing, and I'm thinking that all that white so close to each other is a little overpowering.

I was maybe four or five rows into it - maybe six or eight if you count the cast on and setup rows. I thought about ripping back and using the gold-lined blue beads I had, but they just wouldn't show up hardly at all, and the SO resisted all my attempts to get him to go out in the rain with me to a bead store I found in Arlington (wuss - it was just a freaking tropical storm) to look at other bead options. He argued that we would be out that direction anyway on Sunday and I made him promise to take me if I was still unhappy with the beads on Sunday (yes, I know, I could've gone myself, but I had a feeling I would need somebody who would eventually get tired and go JUST PICK SOMETHING WOMAN or else I would be meebling around the store all day).

I also had problems with the yarn. I've had several problems with it tangling in the ball. I've had that happen before with yarn that I've wound, but I've never had an issue before with yarn wound at the store. It is really, really annoying me.

Then, I've had problems working with it on the needles. Normally with laceweight yarn (and silk yarn) I use wooden needles, but moving the stitches on the needle, especially the beaded stitches, was torture. I finally got a clue and switched to metal needles and the relief was immediate - stuff actually moves normally up and down. It's odd for silk to be this grippy, but maybe it is because Tussah silk?

Anyway, so that made it better, but the beading process also started getting to me a little. I started out using a very tiny crochet hook, but it's so tiny I can't catch both plies of the yarn with it, so I was snagging the heck out of my yarn. When we went out to dinner I bought some Oral B superfloss and tried the superfloss method. That is working better, but it's still a very tedius process. Worse, the stitches around the beaded area look AWFUL. It's so depressing. It's not the beaded stitches themselves that are the problem, but the column of stitches to the left of any beads is really wide and ladder-like. It's tempting to frog the whole thing and start over, but then I would have to rebead all that stuff, and I think I would go crazy.

Fortunately, the volume of beads on this chart suggests that the beading will taper off somewhat after the second clue. This makes sense as beading on the ends gives some weight to the piece to help it drape properly, while beading in the middle should be light so as not to make the piece droop where it isn't supposed to. So I'll grit my teeth and power through and hope the bad-looking stitches will tighten up in blocking. They should - I'm mostly annoyed because I can't figureout what I'm doing that's making them look so loosey goosey. I'm eyeing the beads with suspicion...maybe the way they strangle the stitches makes those stitches take up less yarn, so the slack ends up in the neighboring stitches? No telling.

After discussing it with the SO last night (he did his best to understand and be helpful, but his approaches are largely to conservative for my impulsive self), I have decided to finish the first clue. Then I am going to swatch again, but this time, I'm going to swatch one of the beaded diamonds, with different beads. I have, since the first, regretted not ordering a particular set of beads that my imagination has convinced me would have been perfect, so I finally sucked it up and ordered them and a couple of other possibilities. Hopefully, they will arrive by the time I finish this clue. If I like the swatch better, better enough to make it worth it, I will go ahead and knit clue one that way. If I still like it, I will frog the first attempt and reknit it.

I hope to finish the clue tonight. I have activities for the rest of the week, so I should be occupied until the new beads come.

Some and none

I made a fair bit of progress over the weekend but I haven't gotten much done since then. I haven't been sleeping well so my evenings have been spent staring zombie-like at nothing. Moving the needles is too much work - let alone following a chart or something like that.

I finished the tomato socks and packed them off to their recipient. I didn't wash them, I probably should have - but in the end I decided to let her try them on first. If they fit as they are, then she can wash them in cold water so they don't shrink too much. If they are a bit too big, she can wash them in hot water and shrink them up a bit. They really weren't that much work so I'm not really sure why I am so freaked about whether they fit or not. I haven't heard a word since I sent them home with the recipient's hubby to be gifted...kinda makes me nervous but we usually see them on Thursdays so here's hoping I will find out today. I just want to KNOW OMG.

I've worked some on Whispering Pines. Last night I started a new swatch for the mystery stole. I swatched previously on 4s and the fabric was more open than I prefered. This was actually a little odd for me - I'm a tight knitter so normally I end up starting with a needle size larger than the one recommended. I only got through one repeat, though, before I was just tired to do anymore. I think I like the 3 better, but we'll see when it's blocked. I did block the original swatch pretty severely, so it may be that I could just...not do that.

I am debating over knitting both sides of the stole at once. I'm not really keen on knitting them both at the same time (that is, doing one row of one and the same row of the other on one long needle), but I was thinking before, when I was using 4s, that I could work one side, cap the cable, and work the other side on a seperate cable. I would effectively be working each section twice in a row. Don't ask me why this is preferable to just doing the second side at the end, but somehow I'm sure it would be.

However, 4 is the smallest size of interchangeable needle put out by knitpicks. If I use the 3's, I'd have to buy another needle.

Decisions, decisions.

I'm also struggling with a last-minute bead substitution. One of the beads I ordered, the Montana matte, was the right blue but it didn't show up. I'm wondering if the Montana lustre ones would be the right blue but show up a little better. I thought I was happy with the old ivory beads but I kind of hate that I have not tried the blue ones. Again - decisions, decisions. If I order now they will not get here by tomorrow and tomorrow is when the first clue comes out so I would have to wait to cast on...I'm not sure if I can do that. Woe!

I'm also really, really tempted to buy one of Beadwrangler's beading kits. Not the bead crochet ones, but one of the actual beading kits, like maybe the floral thing or the vine wave kit. I'm trying really hard to be good, though, finances are really tight so I can't get too carried away.

The embossed stitch socks are going along nicely. One of the great things about this stitch pattern is that it's easy to count repeats, so I am doing a much better job at matching length on this sock than on previous socks. I counted 9 diamonds before the heel, and then I plan to count diamonds on the foot too so the socks will be even. I'm keeping an eye on my guage and it looks like my tension is the same on both socks. I had a mishap with the tomato socks, in that I ended up, again, with one longer than the other. I didn't realize it until I had kitchenered the toe and rather than try to pick it out - I just cut it off. The end of the toe, that is. It was kind of scary, but it worked. I picked out all the cut pieces until I got to the end of the yarn, frogged back to the beginning of the toe decreases, joined the skein back, added a few more plain rounds, and then re-kitchenered the toe.

I forgot to take a picture, either of the cut-and-frog or of the finished socks. I had stayed up kind of late by that time and I just didn't think of it.

Football season is picking up again so there will be much knitting while the SO watches sweaty men crash into each other. I'm at the heel of the embossed diamonds sock and I hope to get some progress made during the game tonight...if I can stay awake.