Not a Second Time

I’m sorry to do this again in such a short period of time…

Brian got me set up with my own domain name and new web hosting, so my blog address is changing again. (I promise, no more after this!) He was able to import all of my stuff from this blog (hosted by WordPress) to the new server/domain, so it looks just the same, and all of my posts from the past week and all of your comments have made it over.

You can find me at either www.acrosstheknitterverse.com or www.knitterverse.com (both point to the same place). Please update your Google Reader/Bloglines/Favorites/Blogroll accordingly! Sorry for the change.

Honey Don’t

Less than a day after talking about someday using this song title on the blog, Honey gives me a reason to use it.

I finished knitting the Log Cabin Baby Blanket last night. I just need to weave in the ends and wash it before packing it up to send off to the recipients. When I finished knitting, I spread it out on the table to see how big the finished blanket was, and I left it there overnight.

Check out the scene we found when we woke up and came downstairs this morning…

She knows she’s not supposed to be on the table, but I think the combination of a sunny spot and a blanket was too much for her to resist.

And of course, being the overindulgent cat parents that we are, rather than making her get down right away we go and get the camera and take pictures because she’s so cute. And we wonder how she got so spoiled…

It’s All Too Much

To start out, I must say — my decision to incorporate Beatles song titles into my blog has made it kind of fun to chose post titles. With over 300 titles to choose from, I have a lot of material to work with. There are lots of song titles I don’t know when I’d have reason to use (as written at least) — “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill”, “Sour Milk Sea”, and “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” to name a few. But if I ever knit another pair of Monkey socks, I’m definitely using “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and my Monkey”. I can see “Fixing a Hole” coming into use at some point. And of course, “A Taste of Honey”, “Honey Don’t”, “Honey Pie”, and “Wild Honey Pie” will be quite useful when I post about Honey the Cat.

The reason for the title I chose for today is that I’ve decided to pare down my WIP list. It was up to 6 projects. I know that there are people who can have a dozen things going at once, but for me, anything more than 4 or 5 projects makes me uncomfortable. I feel like I’m unable to give equal attention to more than 5 projects and so something ends up being a very long-term WIP, sitting around getting no love.

I haven’t worked on the Lace Chuppah in a few weeks, and with so many WIPs going, I’m worried that I will get behind in working towards the deadline for that. I had planned to be finished with the Log Cabin Baby Blanket by now, but I got distracted with sock knitting, allowing myself to start a third sock project. And I got all gung-ho about knitting the Lelah top at the beginning of the month, but now I realize that I probably won’t finish it before it gets too cold to wear it.

One WIP that is being removed from the list is an easy choice. I got past the heel on my Swirl Sock and realized that the foot is too narrow with this needle size (1.5s). I also made a few mistakes in the first few rows of the swirl pattern (which I ignored at the time because I wanted to keep knitting). So I plan to frog what I have and reknit them on Size 2 circulars once I finish the second Embossed Leaves Sock and Bellatrix Sock.

The second project being removed from the list is the Lelah tank top. By the time I finish it, it will be too cold to get much wear out of it. So Lelah is going into hibernation as a UFO (unfinished object) and will be taken out next spring when I’m excited about knitting summery things again.

So that leaves on the list:

• Log Cabin Baby Blanket (hoping to finish this week)
• Bellatrix Socks (hoping to finish before the end of the Summer of Socks along)
• Embossed Leaves Socks (hoping to finish before the end of SOS)
• Lace Chuppah (this one is a long-term project)

Once I finish the Log Cabin Blanket I’ll have enough room on the list to start a new project. I think I know what I want to knit, and I already have the yarn to knit it (actually, I chose the pattern because I wanted to knit with this yarn). But I’ll keep it as a surprise for later.

FO – CeCe Cardigan

I had been waiting to get a better picture of this. In the ones that Brian took last week, my hair is kind of frizzy and I need lipstick. But if I wait too much longer, I might forget to post about CeCe altogether. So you get a FO picture with my head cropped out.

Pattern: CeCe by Bonnie Marie Burns – ChicKnits
Yarn: Rowan Calmer in Peacock (a discontinued color)
Needles: Size 7 & 8 Denise Circulars/Size 7 & 8 Inox DPNs
Started: May 2007
Completed: August 2007

This is definitely the most wearable sweater I’ve ever knit. I tend to get cold in places that over-air-conditioned in the summer, but it is still super hot outside and I don’t want to be dressed too warmly. So this is perfect…it allows me to wear a tank top or camisole underneath but still keep my arms covered. The 3/4-length sleeves are enough to keep me warm in the air-conditioning, but the lace provides it’s own air-conditioning by allowing air through the sleeves when I’m moving around outside. And once the weather cools off a bit, I can probably still wear it over cap sleeve and 3/4 sleeve shirts.

The only adjustment I made to the pattern was to add about 4 inches of length before starting the shaping on the sides. I could tell from the picture on the pattern website that the original pattern is a bit more cropped than I would want to wear. I think that the length on this came out just how I wanted it.

The pattern was great and easy to follow, but my real rave about this project is the yarn. This was my first time using Rowan Calmer, and I am a big fan. It has both of my two favorite yarn characteristics – its both soft and squishy. I have a thing for squishy yarn. I had originally purchased the yarn to knit Tempting II, and I got a great deal on it because the color was being discontinued. It looks like 4 more colors are being discontinued and are on sale at Jimmy Beans Wool right now. I’m tempted by the price, but none of the discontinued colors really appeal to me. I’m ready to knit with fall colors, like the Cork and Garnet, which aren’t on sale.

Because

The title of this post is the reason I started knitting the subject of this post…because. Maybe because the yarn was pretty and it kept calling to me. And because I was waiting for the additional yarn for the Log Cabin Baby Blanket to arrive, I was finished with CeCe, and I didn’t feel like working on any of my other sock projects. Also because I happened to be in a bad mood and decided that starting a new project was what I needed to help make myself feel better.

So even though I had 2 other socks started (the first Swirl sock and the second Bellatrix sock) I started knitting the Embossed Leaves Socks from the book Favorite Socks. The yarn is the Collinette Jitterbug in the Marble colorway I purchased at Ewenique Yarns last month. I picked up two size 2 16″ circular needles from A.C. Moore to give the “one sock on 2 circulars” method a try. I like it a lot, and I think I might be a convert. It took a bit of getting used to (once or twice I managed to knit all of the stitches onto one needle) but this technique makes it much easier to try on top-down socks, since the two circulars stretch over your heel more easily than DPNs. This trying-on ability allowed me to realize that the pattern as-written was a bit tight on me. So to adjust, I added an extra purl stitch in each of the purl sections of the pattern repeat for the leg, and then decreased them away for the foot, once I got past the gusset.

The other adjustment I made was making the ribbing at the top a bit shorter and leaving out 1/2 of a pattern repeat before starting the heel. The Jitterbug is only 292 yards per skein, and I was a bit paranoid about running out, so I figured those changes would definitely be enough to get me through.

I took the sock with me to visit my sister this past weekend and managed to finish the first of the pair. Once I got an understanding of how the YOs fall in the pattern, it was pretty easy to memorize and went pretty fast. The fact that there is patterning on every round seems to keep me interested.  Once I finish the Log Cabin Baby Blanket (hopefully before the weekend!) I plan to start the second sock.

Hello Goodbye

Hello from my new blog home, Across the Knitterverse!

I am in the process of saying goodbye to Blue Thing Pie and plan to do all of my future knit-blogging here. If you found your way over here from Blue Thing Pie, please leave me a comment on this post so I know that you found me and plan to continue following along. (And don’t forget to add me to your Bloglines/Google Reader/Favorites.)

There is still quite a bit of setting up to do. The header image is something I threw together with my limited art skills as a placeholder, until Brian can find the time to come up with something that better executes my vision. I also plan to catalog all of my past FOs (accessible from the tab at the top of the page), but until I get to that or to posting my recent knitting progress, there isn’t a whole lot to look at. In the meantime, please check out the About page or visit some of the knitting blogs and websites in the sidebar. I promise a project update soon!

Moving In

This blog is brand new and I’m still in the process of “moving in”.  I promise some real content within a week or two.