Winter in Madrid

It's not supposed to snow in Madrid. Unless, of course, I come here to visit. It happened in 2001 and again this year. What really bothers me is not the cold weather, but the dry air. My lungs are used to North Carolina humidity. I have a bad cold and I'm staying indoors today, hoping to feel better by tomorrow so I can hit the streets again (there's tons of things to do in Madrid, and the food is wonderful). I'll be cautious anyway, since I'd hate to be coughing on my plane back to the US, and I'm sure other passengers would hate that too.



I finished the laptop case just in time for this trip. I'm not very happy with the results. Garter stitch stretches a lot and I was hoping for a close fitting case. I'm not posting pictures but I will later on. I have not bought any yarn yet. All I'm looking for is a furry yarn (remember the
fox?), and so far I have not found anything I like. Of course, I've only looked in a shop near my in-law's apartment, but I'm planning an excursion downtown later on.



I wish everyone a wonderful New Year's Eve, and may 2005 have a great beginning for everyone. Don't forget to donate to a worthy cause, particularly the tsunami victims, who need it most just now.

PSA

I wish I had found this link sooner:






I don't think gift giving is a bad thing. I just don't believe it's necessary to go over the board during this time of the year.



Have a worry free Christmas, and may your credit still be good in 2005.

My Birthday

Yep, another year has come and gone. Let me see, what have I accomplished? I've read about 25 books, I got a better job (no commute, better pay, more fun), I've been twice to Spain and twice to Mexico, and once to Germany. I kept most of my plants and Bertoldino alive in spite of all those travels. My husband finished his PhD, I started this blog and I've knitted and crafted some nice stuff. I did not get to knit some projects I bought yarn for, Bertoldino's companions passed away and my Basil plants died out, but other than that, it was a good year.

So I set out to reward myself and visited five different yarn sources, hoping to find yarn for the fox of my dreams. Sadly, this is the worst time of the year to go shopping. Skeins are messy and unwound, different brands are mixed up, popular brands are out of stock or they only have one skein left of the few yarns that interest you. There's even one LYS that was already closed for the holidays. I should have known better. I never go shopping on my birthday, but I was in shopping mode, which doesn't happen very often. I didn't come back empty handed, though:







I bought the magic stripe lion brand yarn just to compare with the socka yarn. It is, of course, much cheaper, and since it requires slightly larger needles it should be faster to knit up, but the yarn content is basically the same and the concept is not that different. I've been enjoying the knitting in the round thing, so why not? I also bought some cascade fixtation for more socks later on. Oh, and some knitting toys too.



The laptop case is progresssing:





And so is the socka sock:






I will be packing tomorrow (note to self: finish that case soon) since we're going to Spain (yet again!) on Saturday. I wish you all a merry time in company of your loved ones, whether you celebrate Christmas or not. Happy Holidays!

Dreaming of future projects

When I was a little girl I had this wonderful great-aunt that owned two fox stoles, made out of real foxes, and she allowed my sister and me to play with them. Back then the cruelty of killing an animal to wear its skin around your neck escaped me completely, but it came back to haunt me when my aunt died and my mom brought the precious stoles home for my sister and me. Of course, we've never worn the foxes.



Recently, one of my coworkers showed me a beautiful scarf made of soft furry polyester.... which reminded me of Marta's recent post about her vegan fox.... and I ended up thinking a lot about my aunt's stoles. I even dreamt of buying yarn for a vegan fox. Mind you, I did not dream of knitting the scarf, just buying the yarn.



I'm not sure if dreams are supposed to give you cues or not, but I looked up the pattern in knitty. It is a wonderful idea, but it requires thick needles that I know I would never use again. Also, I noted that one of the yarns the pattern calls for is merino wool, and an item made of wool it's not strictly "vegan". I am not a vegan and I like knitting with wool, but if I make this item I really want it to be totally free of animal products, don't ask me why. Is it that I'm feeling guilty just now after all those doggy fights me and my sister staged a long time ago with my aunt's fox stoles?


I don't want to buy any yarn yet, at least not until the holidays are over. But sooner or later I believe I'll end up knitting a fox scarf. I think that would please my great-aunt, she might not have been much in touch with nature, but she was a knitter too. The mystery yarn scarf on my finished projects list came originally from her stash.

Almost a sock

Thank you for your comments on my husband's defense. We did go to the movies that night, something we hadn't done lately.


I've been knitting at work, which I don't do very often. I have almost finished one sock:




And here's the still unfinished Frankenbag's strap:




You can tell I'm not crazy about an endless garter stripe. I could have finished a long while ago but working on the sock and watching the different stripes appear seemed more appealing. However, I must now hurry with a new project someone requested. For now it's just a garter rectangle. Can you guess what it's for?

PhD

Yup, that's hubby's official title, after his defense yesterday. We're still getting used to it. I'm glad it's over, after so much stress, especially during the recent months. Now all he needs to do is some finishing touches and he'll be truly done.



I had my knitting with me but I did not knit during the defense, only during the open questions. Here's a progress picture of my sock:






And after trying different crochet and knit ideas, I decided to do a garter strap for my Frankenbag:




My husband's asleep just now. The poor thing is exhausted. He wanted to go to the movies and celebrate, but for now I'm going to let him rest.

Please tell me I have her genes

I have not knitted much but I wanted to show some knitting content. My mother never ceases to amaze me. She knitted this Fair Isle sweater for my nephew:




And also a Fair Isle sweater for herself and a little cardigan for my niece:





And when I asked her where she'd found the patterns she replied: "Oh, I just made them up". She didn't even make charts. I mean, how can you knit Fair Isle without charts? It's not all Fair-Isle, though, a lot of it is duplicate stitches. But still, I'm very impressed.




By the way, she used cheap acrylic for the three sweaters. That tells me that I do have her genes, though maybe not the right ones.

I went to Mexico

Yes I did. I was there for the weekend and I managed to visit my grandfather and my great uncle, have lunch with a childhood friend, have dinner with my godparents, go to a kiddie party with my sister, nephew and niece, have lunch with a high school friend, have a big Christmas-like dinner with my parents, sister, aunt and uncle, breakfast with a friend from college, lunch with (almost) all my cousins on my mother's side and my grandmother, visit another childhood friend and his baby and wife, get a flu shot and some eczema medication. Now, wasn't that a productive weekend?

The real thing

This is truly self patterning yarn. As much as I liked my homemade self striping yarn, it cannot compete with the real thing:





This is a little dark, but maybe you'll be able to tell that I'm using a different yarn for the toe and the heel, to keep the pattern bands intact. That yarn is slightly thicker, and I hope, more resistant than the socka yarn. If the heel or toe become worn out, I should be able to replace them (or so I hope).



Here's also my Frankenbag, badly in need of blocking and some straps. I have yet to decide what sort of straps I will use and how I will attach them.







My hands are much better now. The coal tar ointment helped a lot. Right now I'm using Aveeno intense relief hand cream and that allows me to knit without being afraid of staining my yarn. I still plan on using the coal tar overnight with a pair of cotton gloves to keep my sheets clean.

A little ranting

I have had eczema all my life and I'm currently undergoing my winter flare. The type of gloves I use at work are making things worse: the acrylic gloves (which aren't good enough for protection anyway) make me sweat, and the powdered latex gloves dry my skin. All I'm asking for is powder free latex gloves, and I don't want to go through occupational health to get them (I'd have to go out of town for that, it's complicated). It's bad enough that I am surrounded by doctors and nurses that tell me I might be developing a latex allergy (everyone here is paranoid about that). Excuse me, but this is just an irritation, my immune system is not yet involved. I stole one box of powder-free latex gloves from a different area in the hospital, I hope nobody minds and, more importantly, I hope it works.




I can still go on knitting since my fingers are not affected, just the back of my hands. However, I'm relieving the itch with a coal tar gunk that stains all fabrics, so I'd rather keep my yarn safe. Well, maybe I'll knit a little bit, right after washing my hands and before applying the ointment again. I finished the body of the frankenbag and decided that the greens I have clash with the earth tones, so I'm using one of the pale colors for trimming. I have yet to make straps.




I started a new pair of socks with my socka yarn. It's been three months since I got it, it's about time I do something with it.

The Frankenbag is growing

I like the earth tones, but it's a little dull. Maybe a green trimming later on?




What else have I been doing? Defiling art. Sorry. I could not resist the temptation. I hope no one finds this too pretentious:





This is one of my favorite paintings. It was partially destroyed by fire and later restored. So I figured I could play a little bit with it... After all, it's already been peppered up by someone else, right?

If you click on the image you can see the whole desecration... I mean, work of art... It's a large file, though. And if you click here, you can see the original.

Flowers in December

I'm so happy about my violet that I couldn't avoid posting a picture. See, when I first got this pretty plant I immedately overexposed it to sunlight and ruined a few leaves with water marks. But look at it now! Thank you Heather, for the beautiful plant and the great advice.



And now, some knitting content:





I started a new project with mystery yarn. When I first got it I planned on making a Frankenvest, but the texture is so rough that I thought it could only be used to make rugs. As you can see, I changed my mind again.

I finished the second sock

Yes, I overcame my second sock syndrome without straining my pinkie:








I would have worn them right away, were it not for the fact that they tend to roll down to my ankles. But I'm going to fix them:




Do you think this will work? I've never incorporated elastic to ribbing, but my mom used to do it, so I'm hoping I'll be able to do it too. If it doesn't work, I'm going to ask her for some help.



By the way, she is the one that taught me how to knit, and she was taught by her aunts and grandmother, so I assume people in Mexico and Spain have been using the "combined" method all along. Can anyone check on that? The so called "English" method is also used in Germany and in Italy, according to Marta (I did ask her once). I'll just call it the popular method, since it's the one most books and magazines assume you will use. Modeknits calls it the "Western" method, which gives the false impression that this method is used throughout the Western hemisphere.

I can now be labeled

I'm a combination knitter. At least according to this excellent site, where an expert knitter is trying to gain some converts.



I've knit this way all my life and it never occurred to me that this was an anomaly until I noticed that sometimes patterns did not make much sense. And now, after 20+ years of knitting, I discover that my method actually has a name, and someone is trying to teach it to others. I sure see the advantages: no wrist pain ever.



Oh, and that sore pinkie? Well, that comes from ordinary knit stitches, which I learned to make in order to knit in the round (though I still do weird things when I purl in the round).



Well, I'm not alone then. I feel better. Though I hate labels, don't you?

Another FO

Albeit a small one. No, it's not the awaited second sock. It's a camera case:









That's not my camera, of course. It's a birthday gift for my father from my sister, my mom and me. Technically, the case is not yet finished, it needs some blocking and a piece of velcro on the bottom, that's why the flap is hanging. It's not a very professional looking case, but I know he'll use it. It's made with the yarn I got from the retirement home's spring cleaning.

Two potholders

Remember my first Kool-Aid yarn? I thought about different things to do with this very irregular yarn and finally decided to make these two potholders:








One is larger than the other, but not by much. Making these potholders gave me an opportunity to rest my pinkie (so far no pain) and also to practice a couple of new stitches. The small potholder was made in Shaker stitch (from Buss's Big Book of Knitting). I modified the stitch in order to make the larger potholder, and got a less stretchy fabric, but it's just as thick as the Shaker stitch.



I also took a picture of a doily I started about a year ago and then abandoned. Maybe if I post it here I'll get myself to finish it:

More pictures

It seems that getting my hands on the computer is getting harder and harder. Just to give you an idea, my husband spends about 14 hours per day working on it. Which I hope means that he will finish his dissertation soon, he really needs to rest.



Here's the picture I took of my nephew's scarf before packing it:









And here's a picture of the striped yarn I recently dyed:




I'm curious to see how it knits up, but I'm putting this yarn away, since I must finish my yellow and green socks first:







I'm going very slowly, I don't want to get a sore pinkie again.

Finishing a few things

Yes indeed, I finished that beaded scarf, blocked it and packed it. Those two scarves are the only Christmas presents I'm knitting this year. I took a picture of the scarf before packing it, but I'll post it when I get another chance at my husband's computer. I started working again on my striped socks, hoping my pinkie won't resent it.

Michele asked for a link to the beading tecnhique
that I used for the scarves. I tried two other techniques, (I'm sure there's more out there) but this is the one I liked the most. The website does not mention that you cannot have two adjacent beads either vertically or horizontally. That is something I discovered by trial and error. And it kind of makes sense, once you see how it's done.

I don't think I can take four more years.

And if my very depressed husband means it, I won't have to. He said long before the elections that we would leave this country if Bush won.



I have not knitted much, because I want to give my sore pinkie a break, but I hope to finish soon my nephew's scarf. I already finished the airplane, take a look:



I read today that someone does not like pets pictured on knitting blogs. Which is foolish, since Wendy has tons of useful information and a lot of knitting pictures in her blog. I don't see what's wrong with adding pictures of a gorgeous pet that is happy to pose for her owner. Me, I only have Bertoldino, who's a little camera shy, but I still love him and am proud to show him off:





I'm off to pamper myself, I'm not over the elections yet.

Knitter's Pinkie

I've heard some people complain about knitter's wrist, but what I have is a sore left pinkie. This has never happened before and I think it's related to the very thin dpn's I'm using to knit these socks. So in order to rest my pinkie, I chose a different activity: another Kool-Aid experiment (with more sock yarn, not very smart of me).



This time I want the width of the stripes to vary a little bit. So I alternated 15 turns around the top of the same old bottle with eight turns in the middle and 15 turns at the bottom of the bottle. And then, going up, another 8 turns in the middle and 15 turns around the top. The idea is that the color in the middle will create narrower stripes. However, this color will appear twice as often. After winding the yarn, I ended with three connected skeins:





Which I dyed with Sam's Choice cherry flavor (bright red), Wyler's fruit punch flavor (pink), and black cherry Kool aid (dark red). This is the result:







The Wyler's fruit punch had a white precipitate that clouded the jar and it was hard to tell whether the yarn was properly absorbing the color. I was worried about getting yellow "borders" between the colors, but that did not happen. Yarn acts as a candle wick, so the color traveled through the connecting strands. The problem actually was to keep the water at the same level in all three jars to prevent color mixing, since I was dyeing the three sections at the same time in three separate jars.


I am convinced that this would be much cheaper and work perfectly well if I were using food coloring and white vinegar. But I don't usually have any of these ingredients in my kitchen, so I'd rather stick to my little envelopes of junk drinks. They probably smell much better than vinegar anyway.

Yipee! the computer is mine!

But not for long, so let me quickly show you the gloves I knit for my hubby:




That's him at his desk. And yes, he's wearing his pijamas. Did I mention that he works until very late? Incidentally, I made that coaster that you can see in the back. I used a CD-ROM and cotton yarn.

Also, here's how my mouthwash yarn looked once I wound it into two balls:





Here's two views of the short row toe. I wanted to see which side looked better, and chose the second one (it's too late to disagree, the sock is finished):







Here's the short row ankle, which I didn't like much because all the green yarn was used up for the ankle, with no stripes. And on top of the ankle I have a yellow stripe twice as wide as the rest. This made me think that I should try an afterthought ankle, that way the striping would continue with the same pattern.





Finally, this is the ribbing and the kitchener bind off. It's very wobbly, but considering this was my first attempt at kitchener bind off, I'm not complaining.




Froggy mentioned not using Buss's "Big Book of Knitting" much. I confess that I have only consulted it twice. And twice I had the same impression: the diagrams and pictures are perfect, but the explanations are too short.



Isn't it too soon to have second sock syndrome? I'm going to work a little more on my nephew's scarf and then I'll finish the other striped sock.

Blogging without pictures

It's not as fun, but it will have to do. At least I am taking pictures and as soon as I can use my husband's computer I will post them. I have finished one striped sock and I started the second one. I had never knit a toe up sock so I simply did a normal bind off and discovered it was too tight. This really needed a more flexible bind off, so I consulted Katharina Buss's "Big Book of Knitting" about the Kitchener bind off. The diagrams and pictures are great, but the explanations could go into a little more detail. It explains how to do a 1x1 ribbing bind off in the round, but no explanation was given for a 2x2 rib in the round, which was what I wanted to do. There was, however, an explanation for a 2x2 rib on straight needles, so I attempted that and failed miserably. I ended up frogging the 2x2 ribbing and tried instead the 1x1. It looks a little irregular but this is, after all, an experimental pair of socks. Come think about it, I'm not sure I dare to wear these striped socks anyway. If I try this again, I'll aim at narrower stripes, and colors I will actually want to wear (I don't like yellow much).

What I've been doing...

I have been knitting (and frogging too), but I am so far unable to post pictures to prove it. This has turned me into a bad blogger. I've been waiting all week for an opportunity to post my pictures, but my husband's computer was never available. So I decided to post a simple progress report without pictures.

I knit a few rows of the ribbed blue thing. I haven't finished the back yet.

I finished my husband's computer gloves (fingerless gloves, a project I had not touched in months).

I finished the beaded scarf, but frogged the airplane and started again because the scarf was too short.

I started knitting a sock with my self striping, mouthwash-Kool-Aid yarn. I used Wendy's short row toe. I also used short rows to do the ankle and that messed up the stripes. I should have used an afterthought ankle instead. As for the toe, I would try Wendy's figure eight toe. I was lucky this time with the short rows, but maybe next time I won't be.

When Kool-Aid is not good enough

I want to start my socka self patterning socks, but before I do that, I want to practice knitting in the round with very thin yarn. And I happen to have this yarn that seems just perfect for socks. It's wool and it's fingering weight. It comes from my late grandma's stash.










The problem is, I'm not crazy about this pale shade of yellow, so of course I'm going to enhance it with Kool-Aid. Since this is practice for self-patterning yarn, I attempted to create self-striping yarn. Yes, like those pretty Noro yarns that form solid stripes as you knit. I wrapped my yarn around a big plastic bottle, alternating 20 turns on top of the bottle with 20 turns on the bottom of the bottle, back and forth until I ended with two attached skeins, one of which was to be dyed with green apple Kool-Aid. The name of the flavor is actually arctic apple.









Well, this is a bad shade of Kool-Aid to dye with. It turns the water very cloudy. And it didn't help that the color of my yarn was yellow to begin with, I ended up with an unacceptably pale shade of green:











I did not have any more green Kool-Aid, but I happened to have a big bottle of BLUE mouthwash in the kitchen with me (the same bottle I had used to wind the yarn). Why, if you add blue to yellow, you get green, right? Of course, only if mouthwash coloring is taken up by wool.













And yes, it is! I was very surprised. I wonder if any brand of mouthwash could be used to dye wool. In any case I now have self striping yarn with alternating yellow and green sections... though my green stripes will be a little spotted with yellow here and there:









I tried to stir the yarn as much as I could to avoid the "variegated look". I guess the shallow bowl did not allow me much room. If I try this again, I'll use a much bigger bowl and I will keep squeezing the yarn with a plastic spoon, that gave me good results with my last kool-aid experiment.



Gosh, I'm starting to believe that I enjoy the dyeing much more than the knitting.

Turquoise yarn

Thank you to all that posted comments on my scarf graph. I'm glad it's that evident. My husband pointed out that if I knit it this way, the plane will always point downwards. So I'll invert that image and have the plane's nose to the left.

My second Kool-Aid experiment is dry and wound into a ball for you to see:





And here is a progress picture of my nephew's scarf:





As you can tell, I still have a long way to go before I start using that chart.

A Rorschach for you

A while back ago I made a baby sweater with an intarsia teddy bear on one side. No one knew for sure what it was. Some people thought it was a fox. Whenever someone asked, my answer was: "It's a Rorschach". You've probably heard of that test when they make you interpret inkblots and that's supposed to say something about your personality. This is not such thing. All I'm hoping for is that most people will be able to tell what it is.







You cannot have two adjacent beads with this technique, either vertically or horizontally, though diagonal lines are OK. I originally intended to make a five pointed star. I was working on it when my husband walked by and reminded me of something that my nephew particularly likes and talks about endlessly. So instead of a star, I followed my husband's suggestion and tried to depict my nephew's passion, but I'm not sure it works. What do you see?

More dyeing

I finished spinning the rest of my wool rovings. It was much easier than the previous ones that I dyed before spinning them. Also, the yarn looks more homogeneous. I wonder if that's because I'm getting better with my spindle or simply because my dyed rovings were a little stiff.



I used Changing Cherry Kool aid to dye this yarn. I don't have pictures but I basically used the same method as before, except that I spun the rovings first. The color is distributed evenly with a few pale spots here and there, but I believe it looks better than when I dyed the roving. Also, you normally have to wet the wool to set the twist anyway, and the dye bath let me skip that step. The yarn is hanging in my bathtub and as soon as it's dry I'll wind it into a ball and post some pictures.






Missy suggested that I use the extra beads to make a star on the other end of my nephew's scarf. Thanks for the idea! I don't have enough beads to write his name again (or his last name) so a star will be perfect.

A Boy's scarf

This is my progress so far with my nephew's scarf:





I'm done with his name and all I have to do is keep on knitting until I reach the other end and then... what? Should I leave the other end completely bland and unadorned? I still have a lot of beads on that yarn, so I will welcome any suggestions.

Finally, some pictures

This new job is fun, and certainly more interesting than what I was doing before, but I'm no longer in front of a computer all day long. Which is a good thing, having to walk around is better for my legs and for my eyes. However, you can tell that my blogging rate has been affected. And at home, my poor husband is writing all day and hardly steps away from the computer, so I've been unable to upload some pictures. But here they are for you to see. First, let me show you the kool aid yarn, rolled into a ball and ready to use:






I'll use it as a single ply. This yarn is very irregular and I need to practice some more before plying. I've already started spinning the rest of my wool rovings, which will end up as another koolaid experiment later on:



As for knitting pictures, here's a finished baby scarf, already blocked:







Here's how I threaded those beads:




Using beads is certainly fun with a small project like this. Let's see how it goes with my next kiddie scarf. I already have a chart for writing my nephew's name with beads. Wish me luck!