2008 was a fun year. These photos spur particular memories for me. They include holidays in Arkansas, Seattle, and Montana. Snow adventures of sledding, skiing, and snowshoeing. Bike adventures of the road and mountain variety, primarily in the Owyhees. Events with friends, including hiking, bbqs, and anything involving beer.
2008 was the year when my knitting officially advanced to a new level. As a self-taught knitter, it's taken time to move from novice to competent. During the novice years, my attempts at sweaters resulted in such defeat that I did not even consider knitting a sweater for several years, utterly discouraged. Scarves and hats were my knitting accomplishments. In 2007, I made a few sweaters which were nearing successful, and 2008 saw many successful sweaters. During this time, I discovered new methods of sweater construction that facilitated success and allowed me to incorporate my own creative design elements. This year also saw a great deal of heartache and frustration over yarn and fiber. As a self-taught knitter, it's been challenging to even know what a knitter is supposed to know. After several severe disappointments, I had resolved to only recycle thrift store sweaters, because the risk of yarn behavior was too great to justify its cost. But then I started schooling myself on fiber qualities and began to understand why some fibers behave this way and others that way. And I hope it's made me a smarter knitter. Finally, it's interesting looking back on what I made over the year. Each project has a story. Each was its own adventure.
Neaty: Neaty was my first finished project this year, and one of my first efforts in converting a pattern to seamless. I bought the Rowan pattern book for this while on holiday in Arkansas, which brings to mind a number of memories. I knat this before I discovered instructions for the seamless set-in sleeve - - some of you may recall various stages of a very puffy sleeve cap. This was a successful project - - I wear the sweater all of the time, despite a blocking snafu that forever changed the drape of the fabric. Ah...fiber and steam.
Iceland...once upon a time: This one came off the needles early in the spring and it continues to account for the vast majority of my blog hits. I have to say, I wear this all of the time and I love it. Initially, I was not a fan of this yarn, but I have found it to hold up very well and it has proved to be soft and cozy. I've been giving serious thought to writing up a formal pattern, with sizing and all, but it's kind of a daunting concept. If anyone would like to volunteer to be a test knitter, that might persuade me to move forward.
Two Toned Felted Purse: I have fond memories knitting this during the Presidential Caucus. In hindsight, this felting project was a poor use for such nice yarn.
Cozy Sweater: The Cozy Sweater affirmed the glory of the top-down seamless sweater. Unfortunately, this sweater brings up bad memories for me and pilling yarn. This sweater was essentially destroyed after only a handful of wearings. Looking at the photos of how well it fit make me feel very sad.
Ruffled Jacket: This was another that I converted to seamless. Unfortunately, another blocking snafu forever altered the drape, shape, and fit of this puppy. Finally, I get it - - swatch and wash your swatch. Merino stretches a lot.
Noro Scarf: I bought this yarn during a trip to Seattle to celebrate my birthday. I didn't care for how the scarf hung about my neck, and re-used the yarn for my first pair of mittens.
Oolong: This was actually a relic from 2007, a stranded skirt which had been sitting in my unfinished project bin. I attempted to make headway on it, but this was before I knew anything about stranded knitting technique and threw it away because it looked terrible.
Cabled Scarf: This was another project I didn't finish. I had such a grand vision, but the yarn wasn't quite right, nor was the width.
Inishfern: I love cables. Inishfern was another top-down seamless cardigan, totally improvised. This cotton/angora yarn came from a recycled thrift store sweater and it continues to be ever glorious. I still buy 'nice yarn', but this serves as a testament to how awesome it is to recycle.
Noro Harvest Mittens: My first mittens!
Fetching: I joined the fingerless gloves bandwagon and knitted these up as a gift, and I have noted that they are worn regularly.
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Tweedy Waistjacket: Top-down, seamless, totally improvised, and I love it. With this project, I learned to do stranded knitting with both yarns in one hand. Was able to achieve good tension and proper color dominance, two things that Oolong greatly needed.
Kurzeme Mittens: Second pair of mittens and major color work adventure. Love and love. Another example of the wonders of recycling yarn. Also, experimental thumb gusset was a great learning opportunity.
Frost Fan Scarf: a nice scarf, very drapey.
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Selbu Modern: one of my favorites. Love the yarn, love the pattern, love the finished project.
Balaclava: a fun and quick knit.
On Saturday, I went snowshoeing with Josh, Leah, and David. I've never been snowshoeing before and found the experience very enjoyable - - albeit a little more physically demanding than I had expected.
As irony would have it, we all awoke that morning to find a big snow storm in the works (the weather has a knack for complicating and making more difficult outdoor activities). Several of us were concerned that the storm would somehow inhibit our fun, but it served to only challenge the driving. We had planned to go to a groomed snowshoeing trail north of Idaho City, but driving that far was simply not feasible. We pulled off at Grimes Creek and found a snowshoe trail that had been previously forged.
After a while, the pre-forged trail ended and we found ourselves forging our own trail. This is where the physically-demanding part began. The snow was about knee-deep using the snowshoes, and the resistance that the snow afforded both when plunging one's foot down and when heaving one's foot back up was substantial. We each took turns 'pulling the front' - - and after a couple of minutes of being at the front (or, however long it took before the person became completely exhausted) each would step aside, let the next in line take the lead, and go to the back of the line, where the snow would be nice and packed from the three people ahead. By the time that one had to 'pull the lead' again, one would be sufficiently recovered. Below is a photo of David 'pulling' after a fall in the snow.
Falling was somewhat frequent. Leah and David were particularly clumsy, especially when one of them would tackle the other (as evinced in the below photo). They also had trouble with clumped bundles of snow being hurled at each other.
Josh found himself unable to get up after falling, a number of times. Though, I felt little sympathy, as he repeatedly shook snow-covered tree branches which were directly above my head.
After snowshoeing, we got beers and dinner at the Hilltop Cafe.
More photos on my snowshoeing photoset
I like seasons. All, except the winter. On my walk to work these mornings, I keep almost slipping and killing myself. The icy sidewalks are a death trap. That I keep almost dying is a bit of a bummer not only because of the dying part but also because of how much I enjoy walking. You know, I've never told anyone this... but I regularly have dreams about taking really long walks, and they are glorious. When the weather is nice, I will frequently embark on multi-hour walks. Walking is an amazing pastime.
Below is a photo of some of the fall colors we had a few months ago.
But back to walking...
It seems as though anytime I engage in polite conversation with an acquaintance, they mention that they see me walking around all of the time. They normally ask me if I live around where I walk, but I can walk a long ways.
Recently, Josh has been reviewing some of the activities that we've done over the past almost-four years, and it's gotten me feeling all nostalgic. At the Y this evening, we were propped on the mats chatting about this very subject, and we concurred that it's enjoyable to do neat things with one's free time. That it gives a person something to look back on. Makes a person feel as though they're doing something with their life. You know.
I did say almost-four years. Isn't that crazy?
In other knews, last week the cold temperatures (which almost froze my face off when I was walking home from school at 9:30 pm) compelled me to knit up a balaclava. At first, I was going to knit one for myself (in a pretty, natural fiber yarn), but then I noted my having readily available some dude-friendly yarn (machine washable and dryable acrylic) in a dude-appreciating color (black). And I recalled that my dude had recently mentioned his face getting cold when bicycle commuting. And voila!
Note, that foot is the result of a perfectly-executed ninja kick. It was the photographer's fault for not capturing all of the glory.
Anyhoot, the balaclava took but a few days. The "pattern" is essentially k2, p2 ribbing, with a bind off/cast on for the eye hole, with decreases and a big sinch at the crown. Two skeins of Lion Brand Microfiber (yarn held double). Done and done.
This experience knitting up the balaclava has given me cause to consider knitting more face masks. In my online reading of all things knitting, I have encountered a great many people who knit up halloween costumes. And so, I am considering making up a Dracoclava or perhaps a Cthulluclava for next year's Tour de Fat festivities. (For those not on Ravelry, clicky clicky) I ask you, would that not be totally awesome?
Several weeks ago, Josh and I engaged in a regional 'touristy' activity, taking a scenic train ride along the Thunder Mountain Express. This was something we had talked about doing for a long time and we finally made it happen.
We chose to sit in the open-air wagon, which afforded the better views and an opportunity to snuggle to stay warm. The train did not travel the route which we had expected, but it was nice anyway. The train took us to someplace west of Horseshoe Bend where there was a 'North Pole' scene set up to entertain the kids. As Josh and I are greatly entertained by anything that is supposed to be far below our maturity level, we had fun.
While all of the parents were photographing their children at the 'North Pole,' Josh and I decided to participate as well. I wanted to get a shot of Josh sitting on Santa's lap, but unfortunately, the line for Santa was much too long. Isn't he such a cutie?
Well, I did it. I finished my final paper of the semester and am delighted. It's difficult to stomach the notion that I am not scheduled to be completed with the program until the winter of 2010, as that seems like 100 years from now. On the other hand, I keep saying that now seems to be an excellent time to go to school (what with the economy) and my program is very interesting and makes use of my relatively useless undergraduate degree. And this semester was particularly stimulating and helped me further refine my career and educational interests, instead of being all wishy-washy like I normally am. I honestly believe that I working towards someday having a job that makes use of my talents and interests!
I might mention that I am particularly excited to be done with this semester only because the last couple weeks have been frustrating. Not only did I have a computer incident at a really inconvenient time (see below) but very recently I discovered a significant error in my reading comprehension skills regarding the required paper length of this final paper. Despite having read the requirements for the final paper fourteen million times, I managed to misinterpret the very clear and obvious Arabic numerals representing the page length, such that I had completed the paper a few days ago, 10 pages too short. Coming up with an additional 10 pages for an essentially completed paper is kind of a bummer. Luckily, as I keep mentioning, brevity is not my strong point, and it wasn't that difficult for me to write on and on about all this stuff. ...I'm sure the professor will appreciate this and give me an A+. The end.
In other news, as I mentioned in my previous post, I recently economically stimulated a non-knitting related industry. An earlier draft of this post contained a diatribe about my thoughts on the economy, but I've decided to reduce the amount of unwarranted arrogance from this post and stick to the matter at hand.
Two weeks ago, I was hanging out one evening working on multiple final papers for school, when my computer crashed. Totally, system files all corrupted, crashed. This is the same laptop on which, around about a year ago, I spilled an entire beer. I see these two events as being causally unrelated, however, the emotional distress and inconvenience is interrelated. One, I really dislike broken shit. While the laptop may have plenty of operation in it yet, it ought to be noted that it is over six years old and its functionality is on the wane. Also, the two and only times in which the laptop became truely non-functional, were times in which I was experiencing high stress and really needed to use a computer (ie, the end of the school semester). That this has historically happened during the most stressful and inconvenient of times exacerbated my feeling totally pissed and fed up with my computer. As such, the crashing of my computer compelled me to more seriously consider a new computer, something which has on my mind for a while.
And so I did.
I might mention that even after last year's incident, I still don't have a backup system. Learning lessons, I fail. As of this writing, my files are not recovered. Which makes me irritated with myself, primarily because music bought through iTunes does not transfer to a new computer. The rest I don't care so much about, but the music...sniff.
Ultimately, I decided to buy one of the new iMacs. I feel a twinge of guilt for splurging but I really really love it. I won't detail out my entire decision making process, I'm sure you've all thought about computers and have considered the pros and cons of the different varieties. And that while you try to balance things like performance, price, features, durability, and do a cross-product comparison, there's so much to be said for simply being excited about a product.
So anyway, this was my holiday/end of the semester present to myself. My next present to myself is going to be an external hard drive. And then maybe I'll re-buy some of my favorite music. Aren't holidays wonderful!
see more crazy cat pics
What with the end of the graduate school semester, a busy work-load (yay!), a couple of fun weekend adventures, a personal computer fiasco turned into an opportunity, and some winter weather enjoyment, I've got a lot going on right now. I'd really love to tell you all about some of these adventures/incidents, but right now I'm going to write you all about my knitting exploits, arguably the least interesting and least time consuming of my present activities.
Pattern: Selbu Modern
Yarn: Kauni Effektgarn 8/2
This was an incredibly fast knit. I started it sometime last week and finished it this Monday. Between those times, I engaged in a shockingly little amount of knitting and still completed it in five days. I spent the entire days of Sunday and Monday devoting my energy to some final school papers, taking brief knitting breaks now and then. This proved to be a great project to 'reward' myself after some solid focus at the computer.
The pattern is for a slouchy beret. As I have a small head and not a lot of hair, I was not confident in my ability to pull off the 'slouchy beret'-look, and so I opted to go for a more traditional hat-thing. Considering how much I enjoyed this project, I envision that I will make a second one, possibly with a little more slouch. At any rate, I would HIGHLY recommend this project to others. The colorwork is very enjoyable and not too complicated. Also, there are very few moments when one color is used for more than five stitches, so there is very little 'float-weaving' to do - - a big plus in my book! And as others have mentioned, the decreases at the crown are really ingenious.
As for the Kauni, I am in love with it and it has proven fantastic with this project. The color gradients resulted in some nifty striping of which I am a fan. In addition, Kauni is allowing me to have a greater appreciation for the scratchy yarn. On the interwebs, I've been reading about people's love for scratchy yarn and it's taken me some time to be won over. For those who have not felt this yarn, it's texture is similar to a brillo pad. I bought two HUGE skeins of it for super cheap from a Ravelry user who had been knitting a scarf with it. I imagine the brillo texture next to one's neck to be extremely uncomfortable, and surmise that is why she was trying to rid herself of it. Nevertheless, this yarn (as we will see below) combined with another yarn is very nice, or for not-next-to-sensitive-skin projects (like a hat - - that is, if you have hair to shield your noggin from the brillo-ness) it works well. On the interwebs, I have seen many beautiful scarves with this yarn, and I just don't think that's something I can get behind.
Anyhoo, I've had the opportunity to wear my new awesome hat walking around in the cold temperatures several times, and it is very cozy and warm. People like me, who have poor natural temperature regulation, need to have warm and cozy knitting for the winter. It is a must!
Pattern: Kurzeme Charts 108 & 111, from Latvian Mittens by Lizbeth Upitis.
Yarn: Kauni Effektgarn 8/2 & Recycled Angora
A couple posts ago, I was able to show you one of my Latvian Mittens, and now I can show you TWO of them. I finished the second one well over a week ago and I've been absolutely LOVING wearing them. For my perpetually cold and clammy hands, they are wonderful. They are toasty warm but they breathe enough that they don't get all sweaty on the inside. Over the weekend, Josh and I went to see a play, and after it was over, I rode my bike home in the cold wearing these mittens, and my hands stayed nicly warm. This, I feel, is quite telling about how awesome my mittens are.
As I previously wrote, the thumb gusset was improvised, which explains the wonkiness. Next time I do mittens, I vow to have a plan. Also, the tip decreases were also improvised, but except for some minor wonkiness, I think they came out quite nice. You will also note that the two mittens are not identical in terms of where the colorwork falls. This is the result of my improvised thumb gusset's placement on the colorwork chart. I suppose that if you are someone who cares about matching mittens, this might be an issue. For me...meh. These, what some people might call "imperfections", are inconsequential to me. What I primarily love about these mittens is that they are totally awesome.
Oh, and the yarn. The purple yarn (yes, it's purple even though it looks brown in the photo) is the same Kauni that I used for my selbu hat. As I indicated above, blending the Kauni with another yarn makes it less brillo-pad like. For these mittens, I blended them with an angora yarn that I recycled from a thrift store sweater (the color is lime green, not pee-yellow), and the resulting fabric is rilly rilly soft and rilly rilly warm.
Pattern: Vivian
Yarn: Cascade Pastaza
A couple of posts-ago, I also wrote you about knitting up Vivian. Here is a status photo, with my astro-turf as the background. Don't you think I should use astro-turf as the background for all my knitting photos? It really makes the knitting 'pop'.
This is a great pattern. Bottom-up, seamless, with saddle sleeves, waist shaping, and a hood. The yarn is nice to work with - - I've already anticipated that it will be a bit itchy (llama blend), so I'm making it to be more of a 'jacket' to be worn with a layer underneath.
In more general knitting knews, I'm glad to be back to working on only one project at a time. These people who have fifteen projects going at once...I think I'm too distractable to make that work. While there are thirteen million things I want to knit right at this very moment, I find that it's better if I concentrate on just one before moving to another.
Also, while 2008 was the 'stash augmenting' year, I envision that 2009 will be the 'stash busting' year. This year, I have economically stimulated a lot of yarn shops. I now have, arguably, a lot of yarn. Over the weekend, I economically stimulated another industry, which I hope to write you all about later this week or next, but a result is that I am no longer able to justify my carefree economic stimulation of yarn shops. But don't worry, I have plenty of yarn to continue to thrill you with tantilizing tales of knitting.
