Knit One, Purr Too

If only I was someone other than me

I spent the last two days in meetings, which meant flying to and from Seattle (and thus, plenty of time on the plane for sock knitting). This meant I finally finished my basketweave socks (pictures will come later)! I have never been someone who suffers from secondsockitis, so to have had this pair sitting, only half done, for so long, is really out of character for me. The only reason I ended up having such a delay was that I realized I needed to make my Sockpaltwoza socks, and then after that I got side tracked by the free yarn scarves for Katrina victims, and then there was that bout of obsessive playing of Civilization III (which, um, isn't exactly over yet), so....not a lot of knitting lately, and far too much delay in finishing a silly pair of socks.

They're comfy though. I'm wearing them today.

I'm currently at a loss for what to start next, since I literally have nothing whatsoever on the needles. I'll be out of town again next week for three days, for work, which means I really should focus on small things that are portable. But instead I am dreaming of impractical things. Things like this skirt. Isn't it gorgeous? I want to make this skirt. My brain is blithely ignoring all the million and one practical reasons why it would be insane to make that skirt, including the most important reasons, like the fact that I do not wear lace, I rarely wear skirts, and just the thought of me in a skirt made entirely of lace is enough to make my entire family and many of my friends fall over on the ground from laughing and pointing. Not to mention the fact that skirts like this only look good on tall, willowy women, and I am neither tall, nor willowy. But that is all irrelevant. Pesky logic means nothing. After all, I made myself a lace shawl (see above re. never wearing lace) and I even wore it once (although admittedly it was sort of bunched up like a scarf and I spent the entire time feeling like I wasn't actually me that day because there was lace! On me!). So surely a lace skirt that will take me quite possibly months to complete is not so far fetched.

Maybe it is for the best that I have been so thoroughly side tracked by Civilization III, and capable of knitting only mindless things like scarves and socks. Maybe if I keep on playing, eventually this irrational need to make myself a completely impractical garment will fade, and I will remember that there are piles of yarn in my yarn closet waiting to become yet more afghans, and there is an entire bin of sock yarn still to be knit into cozy footwear, and there is that lace doily I am supposed to be starting because my mom wants a doily and surely I could finish that before Christmas, if I can just avoid looking at unreasonable things like pretty, lacy, perfectly ridiculous for short, chubby, never-wears-lace me, skirts.

A quartet of small projects

I finally got around to weaving in the ends of the three scarves I've made from the free yarn (there might have been more done by now but I've been a little...um...side tracked playing Civilization III. I cannot help myself - it's an addiction that rears its ugly head once or twice a year and I must then spend weeks on end taking over the world).

The two multicolored things are ribbon yarn that has a slightly metallic sheen to it. I did simple garter stitch, using large needles to give it the open look. The green, tweedy scarf in the middle is made of some type of wool (you can see I forgot to save the labels, can't you?) in a broken rib pattern.

I also finished another pair of socks from KnitPicks Dancing sock yarn. This pair isn't nearly as psychedelic as the first, which was a relief.

. I've started making the legs of my socks a little shorter, and since I've got small feet, this means I managed to get a full pair of socks out of just one ball of yarn, and even have a little bit of yarn left over. This does leave me with the problem of what to do with the second ball, but I have been toying with the idea of making some fingerless gloves, so perhaps I can use it for that instead.

Fuzzy feet

My old slippers have been falling apart for months, so I decided I needed to make myself a pair of Fuzzy Feet. I got some lovely pink wool from KnitPicks, and finally got around to making myself a pair of felted pink slippers.

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These were incredibly quick to make, since it's just a pair of really big socks using large needles and thick yarn. Each slipper took me just about one skein of the wool (in fact I only had a few inches left of the first skein, after finishing the first slipper!). I threw them into the washing machine with some sheets and had a momentary panic when I pulled them out after the first run to find that they had not shrunk at *all*. But two cycles later (this time using hot water and the heavy setting) they shrank up just fine. Phew.

I like them because they are cute and comfortable and fit me perfectly, unlike most slippers which are meant for an 'average' woman's foot - and thus for a foot that is always just enough larger than mine to make the slipper almost too loose. However, I do wish I'd doubled the yarn, at least around the foot part, because the sole is a little thin.

Back to basics

A few weeks ago when I showed up at the knitting group in Vacaville, someone noted that the soon-to-open yarn shop down the street was giving away free yarn for people who were willing to knit things for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. My knitting mom and I looked at each other, our eyes brightened, and off we scurried with a few other newly arrived members of the group to check it out.

They weren't kidding. There were boxes and boxes of yarn in every color and texture imaginable, all of it luxury yarn, and all of it free. My friend and I immediately picked out a few balls of ribbon yarn and some sparkly fluffy stuff because we figured even though we will never, ever buy this sort of thing for ourselves (not only would we never wear it, no one we know would be caught dead in it either), this would give us the opportunity to play with yarns we would otherwise never have touched. We also put our names down for the soon-to-be-open store's mailing list, and I casually mentioned that if they were looking for people to do swatches, we would be more than interested (because the last time was a lot of fun). There seemed to be some interest, so we added 'will swatch' to the contact info, and we'll see if anything comes of that.

So since I finished the messenger bag for Richard, I've pretty much been focused on working with the free yarn (along with the sock that lives in my purse so I have something to do while waiting for my allergy shot each week). I tried a few different things with some of the yarns, and it took a little while for inspiration to strike. So far I've managed to do two garter stitch scarves from the ribbon yarn, which is black with multicolored metallic threads woven in. I'm toying with a few ideas for a tweedy green wool, and there is a ball of the softest skinny pink stuff that I think might work for one of those simple lace scarf patterns I've been pondering.

I find it a little amusing, myself, to be back to knitting something as basic as scarves - and garter stitch scarves, no less. They're not something I'd ever really wear, but they do look pretty and my hope is that they'll give someone who has lost everything in the hurricane something to smile about.