A list.

The forementioned pile of projects on my plate:

The Purse
Hallowig for bibliogrrl, who is shaving her head for Gilda’s Closet in Chicago.
Shirt for Thing Two (almost finished, just needs buttonholes and buttons)
“Chain mail” tunic for Thing One’s Hallowe’en costume
Swordfish fin for Thing Two’s Hallowe’en costume
Trick-or-treat bag for Little Cat Z (thinking about doing a tutorial on how to make one, too)
Dress for Thing One (designing it for her)
Dress for Little Cat Z (based on dress for Thing One, but with different yarn and a much smaller size, seeing how well the pattern can be altered)
Cropped cardigan for me (heavily modifying Ravelry pattern Sweet Little Nothing)
Ripping out first Sweet Little Nothing and finding something else I can make with that yarn (maybe The Amanda Hat)
A skirt for Grace
A skirt for me
A skirt pattern I came up with the other day that may or may not work (although I don’t even have fabric for this, so it probably shouldn’t be listed here)
Finish the super secret felting project (needs I-cord still) and figure out what the heck I’m doing with it

I think that’s far more projects than I really need to have going all at once. Hopefully by the end of this weekend, I’ll have the first three done (although if the first Hallowig works well, I might make more, but we’ll see).

So much time, so little to do!

. . . Strike that. Reverse it. (Thank you, Willy Wonka.)

I have far too many projects on my plate right now. I probably wouldn’t if I wasn’t running into stumbling blocks every other day.

I’ve knitted and felted The Little Coco Bag. I used the KnitPicks Wool of the Andes in Pigeon Twist that I already had, instead of doing two colors, and I did 3-stitch I-cord instead of 2-stitch. Everything was going really well until it came time to get the grommets. My mom had some, but the largest she had were 1/4″ (which is what the pattern calls for, but my larger I-cord would have fit too snugly), so I had to go buy some 3/8″ grommets. They had the grommets at JoAnn’s, but not the setting tool. My good spouse was going to try to make one up for me, but before he got a round tuit, we found the setting tool at Michael’s. Of course, I didn’t have enough cash on me for all the other neat stuff I found there, so I wanted to write a check. Unfortunately, I was a bad girl and am driving on a ticket (I should have my license back this week, I think), and Michael’s won’t take a check without a picture ID. So we had to wait another week or so before we could go back (it’s a thirty mile drive, I wasn’t going back until I had more reasons to go than just the grommet tool).

I finally have both the grommets and the grommet tool, all in one place, and I can start working on getting the grommets into the bag. Poking holes into heavy felted fabric is not as easy as it sounds. I couldn’t get my size 13 needles (which is what they say to use in the pattern) through the fabric at all. (I don’t believe they actually used those dpns in the picture on the pattern to make the holes. They’d have punctured their hands. I think they made the holes then put the dpns in because they looked nicer.) I decided to start with smaller needles (10 1/2s), get the holes in there, then stretch them out with the 13s. This worked, but as soon as I took the 13s out, the holes shrank. So I decided to leave them for a day. That seemed to work better. But my troubles weren’t over yet.

When I got home that night, I decided I’d wait until the kids went to bed to set the grommets. In case you’re wondering, this is not a good idea. “Quietly hammering” is an oxymoron. I managed, with the help of my good spouse, to get one in place, but decided not to do any more until another evening, before the kids went to bed.

One thing my good spouse noticed was that there was a 1/4″ snap part in with my grommets. We joked about how they call the grommet parts male and female, so ha-ha, neither of us had to actually finish the thought. This continued to be funny, in my mind at least, until last night, when I finally went to set the last of the grommets.

I was still having trouble getting the grommets into the holes. I could have stretched them out further with 15s, but I didn’t feel like waiting any longer. Then the lightbulb in my brain came on. The size 13 needles are just the right size for the 3/8″ grommets to fit around. I slid a male-part grommet onto a needle, pushed the needle through the hole, and then, with a modicum of effort, pushed the grommet into the hole. It worked perfectly. The perfection continued as I worked my way around, all the way up to the seventh grommet, when I realized that I didn’t still have two male-parts that were just stacked tightly together. I had one, plus the little “baby” snap.

Of course, I don’t have the receipt from JoAnn’s anymore. I’m going to call before going out there (thirty mile drive, remember) and see if they will, without the receipt, take the baby snap part and give me a daddy grommet part, and then they can send the opened package back to Dritz as a faulty set.

I’m really looking forward to finishing this. I’m going to line it with a lighter shade of matching purple fabric that I happily found in my fabric stash (it is just the right amount), and then I’m going to try it out and see if it might actually be The Purse. You know, The Purse for which I have been searching for years. The Purse which will be the perfect size to hold everything I need, plus maybe a paperback book and a few other things I just want to carry.

Hopefully, once I get the correct grommet part (if JoAnn’s can’t do the little exchange I have in mind, I’ll just buy more grommets, seeing as how the package of eight was less than three bucks, anyway), that will be the end of my troubles with this project, and I can move on to solving the problems I’m having with others.

Why isn’t everything in the world exactly the way I like it?

Things would be so much easier if it was.

I have several pairs of INOX circular needles. Most of mine are nickel-plated, but I also have a couple plain aluminum, and one . . . nylon? I like them. They are nice needles, especially the nickel-plates. The cables are smooth and flexible, and the joins are pretty smooth, too. The problem I have discovered just lately is that in the larger sizes (I think the problem starts at size 8, for me at least), the points are too blunt. For the most part, this isn’t a problem for me. I’m not a speed knitter, although I’m not pokey, either (ha!). But I tried doing a cable cast-on for the Two Summer Sundress, and it was a bitch-and-a-half to get the yarn pulled through because the tip of the needle is really wide. I thought about switching to my interchangables, but they might have given a different gauge because they’re just aluminum (not that this stops me from using them as the second set of circs if I’m doing something in the round with one set of nickel-plated, I just like to complain and if you haven’t figured this out about me yet, you’ve obviously never encountered me before), and I didn’t want to have to do another gauge swatch. I finally managed it, but the cast-on edge is maybe a little looser than I would have liked.

I really like the way cabled cast-on looks, though.

I don’t have anywhere near a “complete” set of needles (as if there could ever be such a thing), but I’m wondering what sort I should get next time I buy needles. I know I like Addi Turbos, although I seem to have lost the few sets I had of those. I have one set of KnitPicks circs, which I haven’t really used because it turns out I’m knitting kind of loose again, even with wrapping the yarn around my pinky (I’m thinking of doing something like the woman in the remake of The Ladykillers, where she wraps it around each of her fingers, but I don’t know if I’ll like that), and I had to go up three sizes to get the right gauge for that project (and I think I could honestly have gone up another, but maybe some of it’s the yarn and not my knitting). I have one set of bamboo DPNs that I got to make the Shawl from Niflheim (which, Spricey, is still not blocked), and those are really nice to work with. My interchangable set is a Boye Needlemaster. I have several Susan Bates circs, too.

So, if anyone has any favorite needles they’d like to recommend — interchangables, straights, circs, DPNs, those really long ones they stick in their belts in the Shetlands, whatever — feel free to let me know!

Things I have done instead of posting.

1. I am almost finished with a gargantuan scarf I’m making for my friend Grace. I’ll be out of yarn sometime real soon now, and then I’ll have to find a stretch of floor long enough to lay it out and measure it. It’s got to be close to nine feet long (it’s long enough if I hold one end in my hand and stretch my arm way up, it still pools on the floor). And she keeps saying, “I knew we should have gotten another skein!”

2. I made Grace a womb. I’d teach her how to knit for herself, but she’s tried it and not done well, and has decided it’s not for her.

3. I made Little Cat Z a Summerlin dress. It’s very cute, even if I did run out of yarn and have to do the last row and bind off in a different yarn (and a different color). It turned out very big, especially the straps, and I’m not sure if that’s because of the yarn I used (KnitPicks Shine Worsted), but I think it might be. I was going to make one for my niece, but my sister-in-law has not sent me her chest measurement yet. I could always guess, but I think my SIL might be pissed at me, in which case, I’ll just make another one for Little Cat Z instead.

4. I started a Storm Cloud Shawlette for myself. I’m using the whole ball of KnitPicks Palette I had leftover from my Shetland Shorty. I had to figure out (yes, it was imperative) what rows would put me at 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 of the way done. I did a spreadsheet (I know, I’m a geek) to find the total number of stitches it would have after I do my last row (I’m doing the blue version with the ruffly bit, and I’m taking a cue from Ravelry member akabori and I’ll bind off on the wrong side with all stitches and yarnovers, to keep it really ruffly), and then see which rows would be the quarter-marks. I came up with 7227 stitches total, and row 43 is about 1/4, row 62 about 1/2, and row 76 will be about 3/4. I’m on row 48, so I’m over a quarter of the way done. (ETA: Yes, I probably could have used the formula for the area of a circle to figure it out, but I imagine this was faster.)

5. I took pictures of the patchwork afghan I made for my good spouse. I also took pictures of something else, I’m pretty sure. Yarn, maybe (which my good spouse thinks is hilarious). Now I need to finish that roll and take it and the one that’s sitting in the fridge to get them developed so I can post the pictures.

It’s perfect!

I am an inveterate and veteran web-surfer. I’ve been spending far too much time following links for at least fifteen (hmm, maybe fourteen) years. Ravelry does not help this. It starts out innocently enough. I look at my friends’ activity. Of course, the only person who has any activity on there is the lovely Triskellian, so that doesn’t take me long, even on days when she has a lot of activity. So then I look at her friends’ activity. And that’s when it all starts to get out of control. I start looking at patterns people I’ve never heard of have put on their queues, and finding new yarns that I just really want to get my hands on, and new on-line magazines and . . . two hours later, my queue and favorites pages well filled (in fact, I have completely emptied my queue in a fit of pique recently and need to refill it), I’ll have gotten absolutely no paying work or knitting done.

Another thing I really like about Ravelry (and yes, as much as I might complain about wasted time, I do like surfing the ’site), that I’ve had a chance to witness a lot with all this surfing, is the comments people leave about patterns. My absolute favorites are where someone will say, “Oh, I <3 this pattern! It’s faboo! Absolutely perfect! I’m going to make it in a different color, with a different yarn, and I’m going to make the ribbing an inch longer and turn it into a cardigan and I think I’ll add a cable detail to the neckline! It’s perfect!” Okay, so I exaggerate. But not by much. And you know it’s true.

Now, let me tell you about my new favorite pattern and how I’m going to do it differently . . .

This would have been an easy A for me.

Thing One told my mom this weekend that in 8th grade, they’re teaching knitting. (This is a public, rural school.) She also said the boys are not happy about it. I’m not sure if they are actually teaching knitting in the eighth grade, but if they are I should remember to tell her about things like the various knit Cthulhus and other tentacled things, and the lab rat and all the other silly/grotesque things that boys would probably like to be able to knit.

Does this yarn come in “The Colour out of Space”?

Amigurumi seems to have really caught on in the western world. There is some really cute stuff out there. Triskellian has found quite a bit that she’s put on her favorites list over on Ravelry, including a couple of Cthulhus (this one and the one from Creepy Cute Crochet).

They really are cute.

I just have one problem with this. There are a few things in this world (or out of it) that are really never supposed to be cute. Cthulhu is one of them. Trolls are another (I have never liked those Norfin things). I think nuclear warheads would fit well on that list, also. (Oh, but now I have a great urge to write a pattern for one.)

I suppose you could try to argue that Knithulhu is cute, too, but it’s just not the same.

I do think I need a copy of Creepy Cute Crochet, though. And I added needlenoodle’s ‘blog to my Google Reader. And then I spent way too much time toodling around in Ravelry, finding neat things like a pattern for a cuttlefish, which I feel it is a moral imperative I make.

ETA: Oh my . . . I’m sure someone else has come up with this, and I’m not actually coining a term but . . . are the amigurumi Cthulhus . . . cutehulhus? I think I’ve just turned my own stomach.

Needle Nirvana?!?

I almost forgot! I saw in the latest Interweave Knits (I think) that Addi Turbo is making an interchangable set, Addi Turbo Click!!! Have some more exclamation points!!! It’s all Turbos, but the little blurb said they’ll add needle and cable sizes eventually, so maybe they’ll add the Naturas, too! Oooh!!! Oooooh!!!

It sounded, from the blurb, like the connections might be similar to those on Denise needles. It said you don’t need tools to change needles, which is nice. (I have a slight overtightening problem, so a couple of the points on my aluminum interchangables have slightly flanged connecting ends. Not enough to cause a problem while knitting, but I still wince when I think how bad it could have been.) I’ve only ever heard one bad thing about the Denise set. Of course, it’s a bit of a doozy. I’m pretty sure it was Spricey who said she was making something and using her Denise needles, and one of the needles came off in the middle of a row. At least my overtightened screw-on points aren’t likely to come off (until I’ve overtightened them so often that they don’t screw on at all).

But, if Addi does add (heh) the Naturas line to their interchangable set . . . I might have to start saving pennies. A lot of pennies.

This yarn has gone to meet its maker!

(I put this in the Ravelry notes for my Broken Down Tara sweater, but I think it’s a little long and more post-like for that. So I moved it here.)

This is the sweater that made me decide I never want to let another person make yarn substitutions for me. My friend Heather really liked this sweater, but she’s allergic to wool. And she wanted dove grey, when dove grey was not an easy color to find. No one was using dove grey yarn. I went to the yarn shop (Jefferson Stitches in Naperville, Illinois) and asked for help finding a cotton replacement.

That’s how I came to have a bunch of dove grey Brunswick Rio in my stash.

I was almost finished with the front. It was gorgeous. It was beautiful. It had been a joy to work.

I had used almost half the yarn.

In the meantime, Brunswick went out of business. I searched and searched for Rio in that dove grey, going through closeout bins, asking people I knew to ask people they knew. The sweater is knit with two strands, so I didn’t even care what the dye lot was. No such animal as extra skeins of Brunswick Rio in dove grey existed. It was not pining for the fjords. It was an ex-yarn.

By the time I gave up, Heather had moved to Indiana, so I just picked another sweater (from a Vogue Knitting magazine I’m sure I have lying around so I’ll post it later) without her input and made it for her. I wound up with quite a bit of the yarn left.

One of these days I want to rebuild Tara. Maybe for myself, maybe for Thing One. For someone. But I’ll either use the yarn called for, or I’ll make my own substitution.

I should add that I don’t really blame the woman who made the suggestion to use Rio, and figured out how much I should have needed. Substituting yarns, especially when you’re using completely different fibers and looking for a little-used color, isn’t easy. I just would prefer that if something like that should happen again, I have only myself to blame.

Of course, a few years later, my mom bought me the yarn to make this absolutely gorgeous sweater (another VK find that I’ll have to add to Ravelry eventually), and my brother (who knits) found a substitute. I do blame him for that sweater not turning out right. How much of that is sibling rivalry and how much is deserved, I don’t know, and don’t particularly care.;-)

Tools of the trade

My good spouse is forever making fun of me because of my Quest for the Perfect Purse. I have great difficulty walking through a department store without at least glancing at the purse section. I don’t remember the last time I actually bought a new purse — I’m not that bad — but I like to look, nonetheless.

I don’t seem to have this problem with knitting bags. I think it’s The Yarn Exchange in DeKalb, IL, that uses clear plastic totes, like gift bags, for their shopping bags. They work really nicely as knitting bags, too. If all the yarn for a project fits in them with a little room to spare, why move it to another bag? String Theory Yarn Company in Glen Ellyn, IL, uses heavy kraft paper bags of the same style. Again, they’re perfect.

I also have a Knit Knack Sack that my mom gave me several years ago. That one I do have a few surmountable problems with. I just looked at the website and it sounds like the new design takes care of them. I have a tapestry bag, and it isn’t lined, so my needles go right through it. It came with a splitring and a Knit-Kard explaining Kitchener’s stitch (very helpful thing to have, because I can’t do it from memory). Unfortunately, it’s on the stage right side of the bag (if you wear it on your left hip, the ring is on the right side), so yarn gets caught in it, especially fine yarn. I finally gave in and took the ring off the bag. It’s now on the zipper pull for my interchangable needles.

According to the website, the tapestry bags are now lined, and they use a metal snap hook to hold the Knit-Kard. I can see that still catching the yarn, but I don’t think I’d be as concerned about the yarn breaking because of it. I think a binder ring would be better, though.

I usually wear it as a belt-bag, but it works as a shoulder bag, too, which is nice. It’s a good size for small projects, or small sections of larger projects. I used it when I knit the Shawl from Niflheim, too, so larger projects that can be compacted work for it, too.

If you’re doing a small project, like a pair of socks, there’s plenty of room in the bag for the yarn to move freely, and there’s nothing on the inside to snag it. It really is a nice little bag.

In my Quest for the Perfect Purse, I bought a really big one once. My good spouse said at the time that it was a good one, because it looks like a piece of luggage, and if he had to carry it for me somewhere, it wouldn’t look like he was carrying a purse. It was good when Little Cat Z was really little, because I could toss all sorts of things in there. It’s way too big for me now. But, it has lots of little compartments and pockets, and I think I’m going to convert it into a knitting bag for larger projects. Then, if I decide a need a big purse again, I’ll have an excuse to buy a new one.