Slowest Connection Ever!

I'm in DC for my sister's bridal shower (she's getting married in September), and while I'm generally having a great time, the hotel internet connection is so slow it's going backwards.

However, I do have several important knitting updates... although no pictures till I get home. Thursday night, I finished my sock pal's second sock (Monkey socks, knit with the Socks That Rock club yarn from April--a silk & wool blend) and swatched for the Mystery Stole at last! I brought the chocolate laceweight from Live2Knit, as well as sizes 3 and 4 needles. I thought size 4 would be okay, so I started with that. It turned out that my yarnovers were really loose with the size 4s though, so I went down to size 3.

I was a little worried that the semi-solid yarn would be too variagated even after I knit the swatch Thursday night, so I figured I could re-assess Friday morning, and go shopping then if necessary (my only other choice from stash had an even wider range of colors, so it wasn't like I could have avoided buying more yarn by swatching earlier, or bringing more yarn with me). But the colors looked fine, so I printed out the first clue Friday morning and got started. I'm almost done with the first page of the chart, which I estimate is about a quarter of the way through the knitting for this clue. I've also started a new sock (plain stockinette stich using the Lorna's Laces I got from Greeley), for the Metro, and when people want to talk to me (darn people--getting in the way of knitting!).

(Also, the browser on this computer is only semi-compatible with Blogger, so no links, and no spell-check... what a lame post!)

Snooze

Here's the grey sweater (the one which will eventually have Something Interesting around the waist, neck and sleeves, but which is currently putting me to sleep). I took the picture a couple of days ago (using my patented "low light and built-in camera" technique to show it at its worst... but is there really a good way to take pictures of a top-down cardi on a relatively short circular needle?), so it's a little longer now. Not much though, because I spent most of the weekend working on Monkey socks for my sock pal (I'm done with one sock and a couple of inches into the second).

It's hard to see from this angle, but the front edges of the sweater come straight down from the intersection of the raglan lines and the neck--I only cast on enough stitches for the back and the sleeves, plus one more stitch for each front, then worked the increases as usual. I'm going to pick up stitches all around the front opening, and work 3 or 4 inches of trim, possibly from Knitting on the Edge (have I said this already?).

This may be a slightly better picture of the front, although the edges are rolling back on themselves. Anyway--three or four inches of trim on each side will be enough to meet and overlap slightly in the front, and hopefully fold down around the neck. What I can't decide is whether I want to have the same trim to be around the lower edge as well. On one hand, it seems like the same pattern in in both places will help unify the sweater. But on the other hand, it could also be an unnecessary horizontal line. And if I do put it on the lower edge too, should I knit the lower edge separately from the front edge or work increases at the lower corners? Or something else? I still have a few inches of sleep-inducing stockinette stitch body, plus the exhausting stockinette sleeves before I really need to decide.

Also exhausting: my weekend. Or, not so much my weekend as everyone else's weekend (I biked 30 miles and ran a half marathon as a training run, but I was the laziest). Kevin and I met up with about 25 other people from our triathlon team in Lake Placid for a training camp. The plan was that Kevin would bike 112 miles on Saturday, then swim 2.4 miles and run a half marathon on Sunday (in the real Lake Placid Ironman, the run would be a full 26.2 miles, but most training programs don't ask you to run the full distance till the race, because running that far is really draining). The bike course is 2 loops, so I was going to do the second loop with him, skip the swimming entirely, and do the run. As it turned out, Kevin decided he's had enough 30 miles into the second loop, so that's all the biking I did. I knit during his swim, and then we ran together.

I'd never been to Lake Placid before, and it was gorgeous, just like everyone said. But a little weird, because it was overrun with bikers, runners and swimmers (and also horse people, hockey players and figure skaters, plus what I assume is the usual assortment of outdoorsy and hiking people). In addition to our informal group, there were other clubs, as well as professionally organized triathlon training excursions. Usually, setting out to work out, I feel pretty virtuous--I got myself out of bed early, I'm going to run/bike, hurray for me! This usually lasts most of the day (which is actually a problem, training-wise, since it often makes me feel OK about skipping the second planned workout).

But not this weekend: we went for a short run after we got unpacked on Friday, then out to dinner. On the way to dinner, we passed runners, and I felt like we should be running. We got up at dawn on Sunday so Kevin could swim in the lake, passed runners, and I felt like we should be running (even though we were already planning to run after the swim). Clearly, I'm an exercise lemming. On the other hand, I usually feel bad going into businesses mid-bike (hot, sweaty, smell, and covered with dirt and grease). But as one of several hundred overheated, sweaty, smelly, dirty, greasy people, I blended right in. Kevin's Flickr set is mostly people from the team, but here's a funny one (next to the beach where everyone was swimming), and Kevin and me after our short run on Friday. We have a new camera that's waterproof (to 33 ft.) and drop-proof (from up to 5 ft.), so we're trying to be better about taking pictures.

Yarn Paraphernalia

Here's the rest of my new yarn from last week: 4 more skeins of Laurel (100% cotton) from Schaefer Yarns, in the color way Lillian Galbreth. I'm actually thinking that maybe some of the Laurel (this one, or from a couple of days ago) would be a good prize, if I ever wanted to have a contest. Maybe half of each color for me, and half as a prize? I really like this yarn--in addition to the color, it's mercerized, and so shiny--but 1600 yards of each seems excessive for one person.

And here's the prize yarn I won from Debby, Chris and spokescat Charlie's fundraising drawing for Get Your Guts In Gear: skeins of laceweight merino in chocolate from Live2Knit. Go see their pictures from the ride! What a great thing to do--I'm especially impressed by riding that far (70 miles) on three consecutive days, since one night of sleep is nowhere near enough to recover and feel ready to get on the bike again.

But back to the yarn for a sec, this is one of the yarns I'm thinking about using for my Mystery Stole--the others are a half and half wool and silk blend from Schaefer Yarn (it's called Trenna, and mine is purple), and some 100% silk from Schaefer, in the same pale colors as the cotton up above. I haven't swatched yet, because I like to live on the edge. Someone on the list for this project suggested that the theme (which isn't revealed till partway through) might be Pirates of the Caribbean, because the designer said white or black would work well. I liked the first movie well enough (back when we saw movies, before we started going to sleep in mid-afternoon... I don't think we've been to a movie theater yet in 2007, although sometimes we try to go in early January, just to get it out of the way for the year), but I'm hoping for another theme.

And I kind of finished some socks... kind of because when I went to photograph them, I noticed that one cuff is one repeat longer than the other (although Kevin and I tried to hide it when we took this picture). I have a little bit of this yarn left, even though I also made some booties after I finished the socks, so I may lengthen the short one. But then again I may not, because I bound off using the Kitchner bind off, and it's a pain to undo. The yarn is from Riin at Happy Fuzzy Yarn, and the pattern is mine, using the Seaweed pattern from the second Walker treasury.

(The title, by the way, is from Kevin--when I received the unpteenth yarn-related package in the mail, and explained that I was NOT getting yarn every day, sometimes it was accessories!--he decided that yarn paraphernalia counts as yarn. Crazy!)

No Pictures Yet!

But we're well supplied with chargers now--we bought a new one and then found the old one (of course).

Instead, I present the next in the occasional series, Times I Have Tipped Over. (A small digression, before I even get started: my running club before I moved to New Haven had a semi-regular feature on their website called the falling down archives. At the time, even though I also trip more than average while running, I thought that was silly, because who falls over that often. Me, as it turns out, as soon as you put me on a bike.)

Anyway, Kevin and I went out for a long bike ride on Saturday. The route we planned to ride is about 50 miles (the exact distance varies every time, because we're still searching for a non-traffic-y, well paved route out of New Haven. Ha!), but about 15 miles in, I noticed that my bike was really hard to pedal, and actually seemed to slow down when I tried to coast downhill. We kept going (always a good idea--get further away from home when something is going wrong!), but stopped a couple of times to try to figure out the problem. About 10 miles later, we realized that my bike was almost completely unlubricated--thinking about it, we remembered that Kevin mostly lubes his bike before races, and since I haven't raced, it hadn't been lubed. Poor bike.

And poor us--I'm a slow biker to begin with, but with my bike fighting me, I was even slower than usual, even though I was working harder (and getting more tired). We decided that Kevin would turn for home at the next intersection, and I'd continue a few miles further along our planned route to the town where we usually have lunch. I'd eat, then wait for Kevin to come back with the car. The town has a big central green, so even if I felt too sweaty and grimy to go inside anywhere, I could just sit under a tree. We split our money and snacks, and I kept the cell phone and Kevin's credit card (I got the phone because Kevin would have our other cell as soon as he got home). We estimated the whole process would take about 2 hours, if there wasn't any traffic. (To throw you off, I'm foreshadowing the wrong outcome... the cell phone, credit card, and traffic weren't the problem, it was my stupid pedals and a waitress.)

So Kevin turned for home and I kept going. When I got to the green, I noticed a bookstore and realized I could buy a cheap paperback to read while I waited... but when I tried to dismount to step onto the sidewalk, I slowed down too much before my feet were detached and tipped over. It was my first experience tipping over somewhere friendly, and it was kind of embarrassing. People asked if I was okay, was there something in the road, was I sure I was okay, what had happened... which was very nice of them, but I generally prefer to leap back up and hurry away, pretending no one saw. (I really am fine though!)

I successfully bought a book (using Kevin's credit card... the clerk didn't notice the wrong name, and we both have legible signatures), then tried to go buy a sandwich. I'd been biking for 2.5 hours, and I was famished. Sadly though, the sandwich plus tax was 25 cents more than I had in cash, and the waitress said the credit card machine was broken (and there may have been a $10 minimum for credit cards, but if she'd said that, I'd have been happy to pay $10 for my sandwich). So I went back out to the green to starve quietly and read. Kevin picked me up soon enough, having had his own adventures: a flat tire, many hills, and an impossible intersection.

Good Days for Mail

This week has been great for mail! On Tuesday, I received a box of Schaefer Yarn as payment for my designs, and then yesterday the lace yarn I won in a fundraising drawing appeared. The camera battery died before I gook pictures of everything (and now we can't find the charger, although it must be around somewhere), so here's part of it.

Meet Martha (a wool, angora, cashmere blend), in the Julia Child colorway. I have 4 skeins, which is 1320 yards total--I don't exactly remember what I was planning to make when I picked this yarn, but it's gorgeous (and I have more, in the Greenjeans colorway). I wear a lot of brown, especially to work, and none of my attempts to make the a versatile brown sweater have quite worked out. My best effort so far is Loll, from the Rowan Calmer Collection (scroll down). But the front edges roll (I think I need to sew some ribbon on the inside), and the sleeves are a little tight to wear over another layer. Which is generally a good idea, when wearing cardigans to work. So maybe the sweater I make out of this will be the answer?

Next up, Laurel (all cotton) in the Elizabeth Blackwell colorway (I love that Cheryl names the colors after female pioneers... half the time, I can feel proud of myself for knowing who they were already, and the rest of the time I learn something I should have known already. I think I remembered Elizabeth Blackwell from a children's biographical series.) I have 4 skeins of this one too, which is 1600 yards! I'm not sure about what to do with this one, so it may marinate in my stash (now up to 9.5 miles, thanks to 3.5 miles of yarnful mail in 2 days) for a bit. A second skein of the same yarn, but in the color called Lillian Gilbreth, which is very light came as well, but pictures will have to wait till the charger turns up.

As will photos of the prize yarn, which is beautiful and so, so soft.

Planning

Here's the yarn I worked on over the weekend--it's the half pound of merino from the Sheepshed that I bought at Cummington. I'd spun a little bit before spinning group, worked diligently on it while I was there, and finished it up at home (totally ignoring Kevin's pleas for advice on what he should make for dinner in the process... oops). It's a 2-ply, and I think I have about 300 yards (I don't have a niddy-noddy, so I wind my finished yarn off the bobbin onto the legs of an upturned chair. Yardage calculations are kind of a pain to do in my head, because my chair legs measure 66 inches around rather than 60 or 72).

I'd been thinking about plying it with some laceweight silk, remember, but in the end, I decided not to, because when I'd spun it all into singles it seemed too light for the colors of the laceweight. (Shown together here, with the roving, back when they were clearly the same colors.) I didn't take a picture of the singles, and now that it's plied it looks darker again (but much browner), so you'll just have to believe me that the singles looked too light. I'm still pretty happy with my decision not to ply them together (although it would have been interesting to see what happened) because I've remembered that I had another idea for the laceweight... which I probably won't actually try for months, because I suddenly have a lot of knitting lined up.

I'm going to be making a second version of the cardigan I just designed for Schaefer Yarns (although designed is kind of an overstatement, since it's such a simple shape), which shouldn't take too long (this is the semi-solid brown blob in the background of the picture here). And I signed up for Mystery Stole 3 (blog and Yahoo group). Mystery knitting is like mystery quilting--you know the required materials in advance, but you don't know what the finished piece will look like. Then every week the designer gives the group a clue (actually, the next few steps of directions), till the piece is finished. I didn't participate in either of the previous mystery stoles, but I really like the wraps people made, as well as the designer's other patterns, so I expect I'll like this one too. Even though it's not a race, I'd like to keep up with the group (more or less), so that knitting will take some time.

And ongoing socks, of course. That reminds me--I took a picture of sock #1 from my current pair, but didn't post it right away. By now, sock #1 is finished and sock #2 looks like sock #1 when I took the picture. I'm thinking about writing up the pattern and posting it here--these are going to be my June socks for the sock-a-month KAL, so when I post a picture of the finished socks over there, maybe some people from that blog will come here and find the pattern.

Finally, I've started a short- or 3/4-sleeved sweater from the Debbie Bliss Cotton Cashmere I bought at Webs. It's going to be a top-down raglan cardi, with Something Interesting (yet to be determined) around the front and cuffs. So far, it's not that exciting, since I'm still doing the raglan increases. Snooze.

Group Project

I think I've mentioned a couple of times that three friends and I have been making a baby blanket for a fourth friend whose baby is due in a very few weeks. The blanket is finished and mailed at last. This isn't the best picture ever (it might help if I didn't try to take pictures in the middle of the night...) and I swear the actual blanket doesn't have the strange spot on the upper left.

The yarn is Swish Superwash from Knit Picks--2 skeins each of the contrast colors, and 5 skeins of the yellow. I was pretty happy with the yarn. Because it's superwash, it became very loose and stretched out while it was wet, but it returned to normal when I machine dried it. In any case, the baby's mom is a knitter (she's the one who first convinced me to knit without a pattern), so I'm sure she understands about superwash.