KTS: dentistry

I had a bone graft done to the left side of my jaw this afternoon. That meant starting work at 6:00ish, running out to catch the bus at 2:30, and sitting still while the dentist did stuff to my mouth I don't want to think about right now. (I have a great dentist. Which is just as well, because even though my mouth looks okay to the casual observer seeing me smile, it's always trying to dissolve itself).

As the luck of the TTC would have it, I got to the dentist's early. So I knitted the hearts & harps (Kristi) socks on the subway, knitted some more in the waiting room, then knitted more again while the local anaesthetic took hold and the paste made from amalgam and cadaver's bone tissue cured. Then I went home, took my painkillers and antibiotics, and knitted some more in ice pack sessions to reduce the swelling.

So despite acquiring a Frankenmouth, I got a lot of knitting done today. The hearts & harps sock has its heel turned and instep started. The double knitted jacket has a black skein of yarn in the correct dye lot added, and is on its way to catching up to where it was before.

For the next three or four days, I'm supposed to relax, speak as little as possible, and live on soft, preferably liquid, foods. Sounds like a great opportunity to knit.

Three more hours until the next round of painkillers...

KTS: this too is part of the process

This morning, right before I went to work, I opened the blinds in the living room and took a good hard look at the double knitted jacket. The change in dye lots showed up less than it had under the halogen lights the night before... but it still showed up. Weirdly for matte cotton/acrylic yarn, it seems to depend on what angle the knitting is held up to the light. Unfortunately, the difference in shades seems to show up the most when the fabric is held vertically, or almost below the light source — the same angle the finished jacket  would be at if I was wearing it.

So today around lunchtime I had an emergency phone summit with the ever-practical J-A, who pointed out that even if the change in the shade of black wasn't noticeable to most passers-by, I would know about it and it would bother me every time I wore the jacket. I'm planning on wearing the jacket a lot once it's done.

Therefore, tonight's "progress" consisted of ripping out the ten rows I'd done in the different dye lot, and winding up the black and steel blue balls of yarn (which, as you might expect, twisted around each other a lot). The whole process took about an hour. The jacket itself is hanging from a smaller circular needle while it waits for me to start knitting it again tomorrow.

I'm sorry to lose those ten rows, but I'm trying to keep in mind what all needleworkers have to be mindful of when taking out work: undoing work is a temporary setback, but a mistake in finished work is forever.

I have two more skeins of the 34902A dye lot left, which supposedly is the dye lot I've been using so far (could there be three? I doubt it, and I really don't want to think about it right now). That leaves three skeins of the 34902 yarn for the sleeves and collar, where the change in shade won't be as noticeable, or at least will be able to justify a Pee Wee Herman-style "I did that on purpose" claim.

Meh. As reverse knitting moves go, it wasn't too bad (GAAAAHHHHHH!).

No, really, it wasn't.

At least the sock is still in decent shape. So far.

Onwards.

KTS: can't win for losing

Today I had to spend the evening in the squirrel cage again (that's what I call working overtime — Thomas Disch reference, probably not the best one), but I knitted during my dinner break. The hearts & harps (Kristi) socks are now at the heel flap. It feels good to get to one of those "sock milestones", and it means that things are progressing well.

I also did some rows on the double knitted jacket. The side branches on the trees are now done (yay!), which means I have two more rows to go before I leap up the chart and start working the tops of the trees. I've decided to chop the bottom branches off the treetops in the interests of not running out of yarn.

That's the good news. The bad news is that tonight I was working under my halogen living/dining room lights because of the aforementioned stint in the squirrel cage, and I noticed that the current working skein of black yarn, which I added in about ten rows (and about 4,420 stitches ago) is not the same dye lot as all the black yarn used to date. It's very close —  it only shows up at certain angles only under the direct halogen lighting, I didn't even spot it in regular daylight — but it's definitely different.

I am a total freak about checking dye lot numbers, so I am not used to having this problem. My first after-school job was at a yarn shop, and looking back it seems like I spent 60% of my customer-facing time checking dye lots (the other 40% was spent explaining that yes, I was only 16, but I had been knitting for half my life, so yes, I could help them).

Some of the black yarn has a dye lot of 34902. The rest has a dye lot of 34902A. Well, now I know. Something to watch out for with Lion Brand in the future.

There are lots of Tricks You Can Do to minimise a dye lot shift, but dark colours tend not to show up as much as lighter ones, and the truth is that the spread of dye lots over the remaining skeins that means that most of the tricks won't work. The difference is completely invisible on the "day" (mostly blue) side of the work, and only somewhat noticeable on the "night" (mostly black) side. It figures that the dye lot change happens just when the foliage and the birds thin out, but once the treetops start it will be less noticeable again.

Fuck it. I'm using up stash for this one anyhow. If it took me over four days in several types of light to notice it, I'm not going to sweat it. I'm certainly not going to rip it all out and look for another project at this point.

Onwards and upwards.

KTS: milestones within sight

Today was another day of feeling crappy, except I worked from home instead of taking a sick day (and actually managed to stay awake long enough to do a day's work!). The evening was spent concentrating on the double knitted jacket. For reference, when the whole Knit That Shit meta-project started, the jacket looked like this:

The bottom section is the "tree roots" or below-ground part of the pattern. The part where ground becomes contrast and vice versa is where the "sky" or above-ground part starts. The sky part is now almost twice as big as the tree roots part. To put it another way, the piece in the photo was about 32 cm long. Now it's about 45 cm long.

I have four more rows of following the chart faithfully, and then I get to make two jumps that will let me skip about 30 rows in total. After that it's about 20 rows to the armhole shaping.

When I get to the armhole shaping I'll take another photo. It'll be easier than, because that's when the piece gets divided into three sections to work the fronts and the back separately.

That's the thing about knitting, as opposed to quicker tasks like (ahem) cooking, which I love to do as well, but it really is a whole different mindset. If you only leave yourself the goal of finishing a knitted piece, you're either going to get discouraged very quickly or spend your entire knitting career making doorknob cozies. You need in-between goals to keep going.

KTS: knitting on sick days

Still feeling ill (infected jaw if you must know), so I took a sick day today. Most of the day I was either sleeping or trying to kill the infection, but I did knit some more on the double knitted jacket. The jacket is turning into a good illness project. This surprises me, because the chart needs to be followed strictly, but then again I am at an easy part.

On Friday I'm getting dental surgery done, so I'm going to spend a good chunk of the August long weekend taking painkillers and trying to heal up. With any luck that will be an good time to get more knitting done.

Mostly, though, I'm looking forward to being healthy again. There's just so much to do.

KTS: knitting while ill

Yesterday I thought I was feeling ill because I was tired. Today it is clear I was feeling tired because I am ill.

Knitting and illness do go together if you have the right project on hand. You don't want anything too taxing, but the knitting makes you feel like you're getting something done.

So today was all about the double knitting jacket and taking naps. The double knitting jacket is almost at the part where I get to skip 30 rows and move on to the top of the tree motifs.

Things are moving forward; they just don't feel like it yet.

KTS: creative?

I had a surprise when I got home Friday night. I'd made some beaded jewelry and placed it on consignment. One pair of earrings and one necklace sold! Not a matching pair, which is interesting. I'm very pleased with the idea that someone I never met is wearing something I made.

Today was Saturday, which typically means going to the chiropractor's for me, so I got a lot of knitting done. Another round or two and the hearts & harps sock will be done to the heel shaping.

I have all these ideas about the difference between craft and design bubbling around in my head, but it's late, and I have to get to bed. Maybe tomorrow.

KTS: energy

Things non-knitters (especially non-needleworkers) don't get about knitting #189,308: if you work on the right sort of project, you can start off exhausted and end up energised. Tonight I worked on my socks while watching a film, and although I'm certainly ready to go to bed now, I feel a lot better than when I started.

One reason why is that I have fewer than ten rounds to go before starting the heel. It's going to start looking like a sock soon, instead of a tube with a decorative pattern on it. It's always good to get past the leg part because the foot is plain (and therefore quicker) knitting. In this particular case the sole of the foot has fewer stitches than the patterned part too, because cable patterns need more stitches than other types of patterning to cover the same amount of space.

KTS: knitting down from the ledge

Today my "day" job spilled over its banks and wound up being what I worked on most of the night too (and I'm still not done yet, but I've gone as far as I can go without talking to any co-workers). The only knitting I got done was a bit of the double-knitted jacket during my lunch break and some rounds on the hearts & harps (Kristi) socks while I was waiting for my 695-page document to save to the network drive. So not a lot of progress, but some — enough to make me think I might be able to get the socks done this weekend after all.

That is, if I don't have to work Sunday again.

Still, the end of the month isn't until the middle of next week, so there's hope yet. And even if I don't make my mini-deadline of two projects done by 31 July, I'll be well on my way.

KTS: learning curve

Tonight I had a lot of errands to run via TTC after work, so I took the hearts & harps sock along. Somehow I managed to make it from having just started the second row of motifs on the leg to having almost finished them, which means the leg is now almost two-thirds done!

Even though the pattern is a 38-round repeat, I find I'm starting to look at the chart less. Just because it's 38 rounds doesn't mean it's illogical — now that I'm working on it regularly I find the traveling-stitch shapes are starting to make their own sense.

I hope that means I can get to the heel on the weekend and finish the sock in time for the 31 July mini-deadline.

KTS: stress relief

Knitting reduces stress, but that assumes that you have enough time and space to knit in the first place. Lately, the day job has been encroaching on any and all waking hours, so it's been getting harder and harder to knit — unless I could get on the TTC for some other reason, which would give me a chance to knit while I was on the way to some obligation or another.

As of this week, that opportunity is getting squeezed out too. Tonight I'm going to work on the hearts & harps socks for a bit, mostly because it's annoying me that the pattern is stopped at the point where it is. Then I need to get to bed to so I can get up very early and do more day job. At least some knitting progress is getting done.

KTS: help

Tonight I got some help from my three-year-old niece in finishing the hearts & harps (Kristi) socks. Well, mostly she helped pulling the yarn from the skein, which she finds really fun. First she was randomly pulling at the outside (the last sock she helped me with, the skein was so close to being used up it was dissolving), so this time I had to show her how a centre pull works. She liked that, and pulled out a lot of yarn.

Now I have several metres of slack yarn to knit up tonight — talk about motivation! Fine by me. I have seven more days before the end of the month. It would be nice to write up the socks and something like the raccoon jacket as being done. This quest is going to feel a lot different once I have some completed projects.

KTS: a good day for knitting

This morning I wound up doing day job work for four hours, so once lunchtime came and went I was more than ready to get out of the apartment and do the sorts of things office drones are supposed to do on their weekends (and no, I don't mean check their e-mail). So I headed out to the Purple Purl, ordered a tea, and got down to some serious knitting.

As usual the place was packed with knitters making incredibly interesting things out of gorgeous yarn. One of the Purl's serendipities is that it seems like every time I drop by there, there's exactly one chair open for me to claim so I can knit stuff. It was great to get down to the business of getting my Knit That Shit projects further ahead, and it was even more great to see what everyone else was up to. It seems like every time I go there someone is making something using a method I've never seen before (and I've been knitting for over thirty years and like learning new things).

Sometimes when I try to knit in a group it winds up being not very productive because either I brought along something which requires a lot of concentration, or because I wind up neglecting my knitting in favour of conversation. This time everyone was interested in getting their projects down for fall, so although there was lots of conversation, no-one's needles stopped moving, and neither did mine. I got more done on the double knitted jacket than I have all week — I'm only about ten rows from finishing the section I'm on now (or about thirty rows before the much-anticipated armhole shaping, to put it another way). It will be good to finish the parts of the trees that I'm working on now, and even better to get to a part where I'm not just making a gigantic rectangle. I love this pattern, but because it's languished for so long I feel like I need to move on to its next phase to really feel like I'm getting somewhere.

On the way to and from the Purl I worked on the hearts & harps (Kristi) socks, so they got a bit closer to being done too.

Now: for the past two posts I've been promising that I would finish something this weekend. What I had planned to do was finish the Raccoon Jacket, since it only needs the ends darned in and the closures sewn on to be officially done:

I mean, it looks like it's practically there in the photo, right?

Tonight I turned it inside out (the only way to tell which is the right side is by the brightly-coloured bits of yarn I've tied to it — you can see one in the photo), and discovered there were more ends hiding on the inside. Many, many many more ends. I just did one sleeve and part of a front before I realised that there is no way I can get this thing done in a hurry.

A more realistic mini-goal is to get it done before the end of this month. We'll see.

KTS: getting somewhere

Today was a good puttering-around day, which I needed. Put it this way, I'm working an extra half-day tomorrow on the day job, and expecting more overtime throughout the week (plus busy-ness from family things). So today I just enjoyed walking around my neighbourhood, running errands, watching DVDs at home, and knitting.

The hearts & harps (Kristi) sock is starting its second set of motifs in the leg section.

The double-knit jacket continues to go slowly, but it's going. Sometime in the past couple of days I've realised that both of the projects I decided to focus on for KTS had an Art Deco look to them: the socks in their wandering cables that manifest into different motifs and then zigzag morph into a different motif; and the Central Park jacket that has a similar tendril look, but rendered through colourwork.

As I've said before, I hate it when people post progress photos every two centimetres, but I did find a finished photo of a Central park jacket on Flickr if you want to see. I love the orange variegated yarn paired with black that the knitter chose — so autumnal and vibrant. Scroll through the rest of their photos too — there's some gorgeous work there. The Celtic scrolls (hey, I have that book too!) look great, and I think I might have the diamond pattern in one of my books too. Very inspirational.

Tomorrow I still plan to Finish Something. It's not either of the things I've been working on thus far, but I know it will take me about an hour once I sit down and do it. So I may as well do it, and be able to claim a success.

I need to have 2-3 "successes" each month in order to get done in the six months for this meta-project. Yikes.

KTS: the productivity-enhancing powers of the TTC

The second hearts & harps sock now has one set of motifs done on it. And no, I'm not going to post a photo just yet, because I hate it when people post photos of their works-in-progress every time they get two more rows done on them. Put it this way: I'm a third of the way down the leg part. Here's the photo of the first, finished sock so you can gauge it yourself:

By the chart, it's almost twenty rounds done.

It's 20 days into the meta-project of Knit That Shit. That means I have 164 days left until the deadline. The meta-project consists of 15 individual items to be completed. So that makes (runs to spreadsheet for a moment)... okay, going by the calculations, on average I should be getting something finished — finished finished —  every 12-13 days.

And it's twenty days in and I have sweet fucking all.

Crap.

Okay, this weekend has to be about beating that. This weekend has to be about beating that because, 20 days in, I've gone from 15 things unfinished to 15 things slightly less unfinished.

But it's okay.

I have a plan.

KTS: knitting before the crash

Yesterday was the day after the hottest day of the summer (so far) in Toronto. I wound up working from my company's downtown office, which I love because, among other nice side benefits, it lets me knit to and from work on the TTC. The second hearts & harps sock is about halfway to his first pattern repeat, in fact.

Everyone I talked to yesterday seemed spaced out and tired, most of them blaming it on the weather. Apparently I wasn't any exception, because I conked out almost as soon as I got home. So no blog. But knitting, yes, knitting got done.

Today more knitting got done as well, because I had a chiropractor's appointment and got to knit in the waiting room. The second hearts & harps sock continues to make progress, and even the double-knitted jacket has had some more work done on it.

So I was down for a bit yesterday, but I'm not out. Knit on...

KTS: ridiculous, but then right

Tonight I got home to work on my hearts & harps (aka Kristi) sock, and was all ready to do the first rounds of the cable pattern and celebrate getting some real progress done...

when I found out I made a mistake on the cuff again. No, really. It's okay, J-A was on the phone with me when I found out and she already mocked me soundly.

So I ripped, and re-did. This time I realised I had been incorrect the other six times. I have to size up the sock to fit me, and that meant increasing the total number of stitches in the sock. I thought I'd skipped the increase round and included the final total number of leg stitches right from the cuff, but now I realise that isn't right.

It's fixed now, for real, and I have a round and a half of Bavarian cabled stitches to prove that the sock is finally on its way to being finished. Here's photographic proof:

 

Cheshin gave me that pillow a long time ago, and somehow it seems extra-appropriate tonight.

I am very, very happy to be past the cuff part on this sock. I am dreading what I'm going to screw up next. But first, I'm going to work on the double knitted jacket for a bit to celebrate (what do you mean, get a life?).

KTS: five

Remember how last post I was so happy to finally get to the cables of the second hearts & harps sock? Especially since it took me four tries to get the thing cast one and ribbed correctly?

[deep breath]

It so turns out that one of the symbols in the ribbing chart is wrong. I always thought it was weird, because it's two symbols that don't go together superimposed on each other. I decided to follow one of the symbols. I was wrong.

This is the problem with having a gap of over a year between one sock and the next in a pair.

Now, in traditional blogging fashion, I know I'm supposed to enumerate my hysterics, the support and jeering I received at the hands of friends and relatives. And so on. And so forth. But really, that sort of stuff's for newbies. An experienced knitter does this:

[mutters "oh fuck" under their breath]

[rips out the mistake and leaves it for 24 hours]

Yeah, not nearly as dramatic, perhaps not as fun to read about, but, I would argue, a better use of time.

So tonight I will cast on that sock for, yes, the fifth time, and I'm setting the double-knit jacket aside until I'm sure the sock is going the right way.

Because this is just getting ridiculous.

KTS: better

My shoulder has been gradually getting better throughout the day today. I did a few stitches on the double-knit jacket last night before deciding that wasn't a good idea. Today I had lunch at my brother's and worked on the second hearts & harps sock on the way there and back. The cuff is now done, and I've even completed a few sets of cables. Really I should complete the round to make sure that I got all of the pattern repeats in the right place.

Okay. Off to do that then.

KTS sonuvabitch

It's an early report today on the progress of KTS, simply because it's not clear if I'll be able to do any. It's disgustingly hot and humid in Toronto right now, has been all week and will be for the week after today, and that plus some housecleaning I did yesterday was enough to get my right shoulder inflamed. (She gets hurt from housecleaning? you're thinking. Yes, I do, and the x-rays exist to show why I do. Housecleaning for me is as much a matter of strategy as it is of simple chores, and yesterday I calculated incorrectly.)

So, after a night of waking up in pain and stumbling to the kitchen every four hours to take another course of meds, I'm now typing this in the local pub, having decided it was better to pay someone to cook for me than agitate the shoulder any more by making it shift pots and pans around.

And yes, typing agitates things too, so I'm going to stop doing that now. Tomorrow I'll post about whether or not I got anything done.