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.

KTS: also-ran / predictive

Tonight is the deadline for the first knitting sprint, and in case the previous posts did not tip you off: no, I didn't make it to the armholes on the double knitted jacket. However, I did make decent progress, and I got a lot of the planning (re)done, so I'm pleased. I'm sure I'll be even more pleased when I get to wear said jacket, but tonight I'll take what I can get.

Usually I post a KTS blog just after I've given up on knitting for the day. Today I'm about to start (okay, after a little bit more of tooling around on the computer). The Cheshin is visiting Toronto this weekend, so I did a bit of tidying up in readiness. Although far from as tidy as I want it to be (that's partly what KTS is about, clearing up space), it's a lot better than it was twenty-four hours ago.

If it's still the weekend when you read this, enjoy.

KTS: the light pours out of me

I wound up working on the double knitted jacket on the TTC again today, and had one of Those Conversations. If you've ever made stuff in public, you know how they go.

A woman asked what I was making, so I told her and showed her the photo of the finished jacket in my pattern book. She oohed and aaahed over it for a few seconds, then said she could barely manage granny squares. Uh huh. In point of  fact, granny squares and double knitting are roughly equal in complexity, but I knew I wasn't going to win that argument. Instead I just said you can do a lot with granny squares (it's true, after all), and told her about Attic 24. Attic 24 is a great place to go if you need inspiration.

That was the other thing: the woman told me I was inspiring several times during our brief conversation. She asked me twice about Attic 24 and said she was going to hit the internet and find it as soon as she got home.

It's funny: if you work on something creative in public, sooner or later you will get told you are inspirational. Yet most people don't even bring a book to read on their commute.

I think the perfect transit situation would be everyone on the bus or subway reading, knitting, embroidering, or whatever else took their fancy. Machine-knit sock and mitten sales would plummet, but there would be fewer bored people in the world.

KTS: health

Well that didn't take long.

I was supposed to go out tonight. Instead, I went home, had a nap, and woke up around half an hour ago — just in time to go to bed properly.

So no knitting tonight, but I think I did the right thing by staying in and taking care. There will be even less getting done if burnout occurs.

I did get some mental knitting done at lunch today — I'm pretty sure I have the rows figured out to get the double knitted jacket done without running out of yarn.

Stay tuned...

KTS: better

Tonight I went to Yonge & Dundas Square for a free outdoor screening of Harold and Maude. It was all the ever-cool Tara's idea, and we went together.

On the way downtown I managed to cast on and knit a few rounds of the second hearts & harps (aka Kristi) sock. So that is finally underway properly again.

But it's past midnight, and this is the second day this week that I haven't worked on the double knitted jacket. I'm going to lose that sprint I planned. Still, I have tomorrow night (except I'm going out), Thursday night (ditto), and Friday night to catch up. Let's see how close to the goal I can get.

KTS: curse you, Newtonian physics!

In another branch of the multiverse, I had a fabulous night knitting my double knitted jacket. The second hearts & harps sock got cast on and started correctly. Everything was peachy.

In this reality, I got home at 8 PM and proceeded to get my Tuesday serial episode out. Some weeks it only takes half an hour. This time it took all night. Ironically, it's a much shorter word count than I usually do.

So, no new knitting news today. Means I have to catch up tomorrow.

KTS: context is everything

Today I got up relatively early for a Sunday, knitted, got ready to go out, knitted some more, got on the streetcar, and knitted whilst in transit. I knitted standing up waiting with J-A for her friend Geoffrey to show up so we could all watch The Amazing Spider-Man together. I knitted before and after the meal at the restaurant we went to, and sitting at the Starbucks we went to afterwards. Then I knitted on the streetcar all the way home.

(I didn't knit during the film because it can bother other people, and because, since I was working on the colourwork double knitted jacket, I need light to see what I'm doing. Also, I'm not going to spend twenty bucks to sit in the dark and knit.)

The double knitted jacket got some appreciable progress made on it, although not as much as I was hoping for the weekend. It did, however, make me think.

I've never been shy about knitting in public the way some people are. I know sometimes strangers tell you it's offensive. Why it should be so, I've never been able to figure out. Are you making everyone else feel bad because they're sitting there like lumps while you get something done? That might explain why no-one with a book to read in public has ever told me I'm being offensive.

But knitting on transit and during "wait" times meant that I got a lot more knitting done today than I have on the days when I've just worked on it at home. At home I only last a few rows. Today, in public, I just wanted to knit.

It made me a little worried. What if all this knitting in transit and knitting socially has kind of ruined me for knitting by myself?

The other thing to consider is that the double knitted jacket is not "TV knitting." I can't sit down with it and pop a DVD on to watch. That means that since this meta-project started, I've been rediscovering my music collection. Before, I'd drifted into the habit of only listening to music in the car — stupid since I've actually got a decent-sounding (if inexpensive) home stereo, whereas my car stereo is noticeably awful.

Maybe that's one of the reasons why these projects weren't getting done: they didn't have a proper context. Making the deadline is forcing me to create contexts where they can be worked.

KTS: this is your brain on knitting

Late last night (more like early this morning) I managed to find some of the yarn I'm going to need for some of the things on the project list. I found the most likely candidate for the black sock yarn I need to complete the Space Invaders socks:

I also discovered that the most likely candidate for the correct grey yarn was already stowed away with the partially finished sock in the photo above.

The fractal cardigan that is already on the needles and therefore counts as a fifteenth project had its photo taken today:

I found some of the yarn I need with it, but not all. Still, it's something. What's in the photo is the lower back and the start of the sleeves.

Today I was on the subway and hanging out downtown a lot. I took the first timeslot to go see the Picasso exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario, met J-A for lunch, did some bookstore shopping, and then hit the library on the way home to pick up some DVDs I'd put on hold. During that time, I made zero progress on my knitting. Oh, I was knitting. I even knitted a lot. But I kept screwing up the casting on and first two rounds of the mate to the hearts and harps (Kristi) sock:

So the only thing for it (obviously) is to sit down quietly tomorrow morning and get that sucker going before it completely kills my progress. The thing is, the second sock is a mirror image of the first one, so I have to read the charts backwards. This should not be a big deal. I have been reading charts backwards for as long as I have been reading charts — since the early 80s. And I've read a lot of charts. I got into knitting right during the height of the last Great Age of Intarsia, when conversations about knitting would go like this:

"What are you working on?"

"Oh, you know, the koala bear."

"Is there anything on the back?"

We were all using DK and worsted weight yarns, and we were all making oversized pullovers with dropped sleeves, the better to knit pictures into them. The pictures were all that was left to talk about.

I screwed up that sock chart three times this morning.  I really don't want to make it a fourth.

Speaking of chart knitting, the last bit of yarn hunting I did in the wee hours of the morning was to find the rest of the yarn for the double knitted jacket:

I did find it, which is good. I even figured out which rows to omit to get the jacket to work. I think.

Speaking of the jacket, the yarn sprint is going... haltingly. Already the amount done in the photo is noticeably shorter than what I have now, but I need to get a lot more done. Which is as good a prompt as any to go do it.

KTS: the numbers

I don't seem to be having any trouble finding opportunities to work on my easier, more portable projects. Tomorrow I'm going to the Picasso exhibit at the AGO, then run around getting some errands done downtown. Sunday I may wind up watching the new Spider-Man film with J-A & G (woo hoo! culture weekend!).

That leaves the double knitting jacket to work on. It's still portable enough to, say, bring over to someone's house (if it's a knitting-friendly environment), but it's too awkward to work on in transit.

There's also a time-and-labour factor to it. There's about 60 rows to the armholes (depending on how much I wind up taking out to accommodate how much yarn I have left). A row takes nearly half an hour to work. So if I get 3 rows done every day on it, that means it will take 20 days just to get to the armholes. That leaves the upper back, upper fronts, and sleeves to do on top of that.

That's too long. Thus starts the first Knit that Shit Sprint: get to the armholes by this time (Friday night) next week.

There's a temptation to say, "Okay, so 12 rows in 5 days, plus a couple of days for slack," but in real life stuff like this gets done on the weekends. In other words, Saturday and Sunday nights' posts better show some real progress.

On that joyful note, I'm going to settle in to do a few more rows before I go to bed tonight.

that shit is KNIT

Tonight I got together with a bunch of knit friends for dinner. Because we were out and about, I packed my hearts & harps socks (the Kristi sock from Sock Innovations).

Progress at last. I managed to finish the first sock of the pair. Here's the evidence (photo taken at the restaurant to prove I do get out and about):

See the teeny tiny ball of yarn beside the sock? That's how much I had left. It's about five metres. In terms of sock-making, that's really going down to the wire, especially on a pattern like that has lots of cables (cabled patterns use up more yarn than plain).

So: the work is on its way. Now what I'd really like to do tonight (except it's getting late and I have to finish off my Friday Flash for tomorrow) is get another row and a half done on the double knitted jacket.