"Bears on Swings" is a public art installation I did as part of UNBOUND, for our school's art festival. UNBOUND, which I co-curated with my best friend James Pearson, enables students to take their works out of the gallery and studio and place them in a public setting. I built the website and narrated our podcast which James composed. It's good! I participated last year with my piece, "Call Your Mom" and co-curating with James was great.

I have a lot to say about UNBOUND, which has become a platform for controversy regarding the topic of censorship at our school's arts festival, but I don't know if the time is right to discuss it. I'm going to remain gracefully silent for now. Anyway! Here's my statement for Bears on Swings:

Bears on Swings is a celebration of the springtime depicted through nature's most notorious hibernators: bears. The work is comprised of approximately thirty hand-knit stuffed bears suspended by swings from the trees which line the academic mall.

The use of knitting as a medium is part of an ongoing effort in the exploration of the domestic arts. As for the concept, bears on swings are simply adorable.

I simplified Vanessa Carter's Bubby pattern and used size 8 needles and a lot of the acrylic yarn I had from when I was learning how to knit. Into each swing, which I built in our woodshop, I nailed a large nail in order for the bears to have something to sit on and hold them upright. Another successful adorable work!

Also The Hand Off received an honorable mention at the URECA show, where undergraduate students are nominated by professors to submit work. I get $25 and a free lunch in the Dean's Suite.

If you want to see more Bears on Swings installation photos, they're available.

Finally. These are Brown Socks for my husband Brian. Brian is not my real husband, but we were lab partners once and people (Lauren) told us we were like Lucy and Ricky.

Brian saw me knittng my toe-up Jaywalkers during many of the thousands of credits we were taking together this past fall. I offered to make him socks and he and his size 13 feet took me up on it! His only request was that they should be brown. Immediately, the Diamond Waffle pattern sprang to mind, as I'd been wanting to knit it for someone since I saw it.

My gauge was so ridiculously off and this pattern was so very specific that I just used the Universal Toe Up Pattern and put in the diamond waffle. I appreciate very specific patterns in the sense that they read like lab manuals, but at the same time I end up stripping them down to just what I need. I don't think I should do that because I don't learn or challenge myself that way.

These socks were modeled in 1-litre and 20-ounce Dasani bottles because I have nowhere near the size feet required to model these, no matter how many socks I pile on. From some angles, they look like real feet. In fact, I could not fathom such a size's dimensions and I used this tool to give me an estimate. It was very useful, though I found that when I apply it to my own feet, the figures are a little on the low side.

In the end they fit, and Brian wore them last Thursday. The diamond waffle pattern doesn't show up so well in the photos, but he showed them to mutual friend and the friend told me that he dug the diamond pattern (HE NOTICED!) so it does!

Pattern Diamond Waffle Socks by Danny Ouellette.
Yarn Knitpicks essential, Cocoa, 2 balls
Needles Size 2 Susan Bates 29" circulars using Magic Loop
Notes Used the Universal Toe Up Pattern and superimposed the diamond waffle on it.

Dasani feet.

They almost look like real feet.

Unstretched.

I started these in another yarn during Cloverfield, ripped and reknit while watching There Will Be Blood, and sewed everything up while watching O Brother Where Art Thou. They're for a friend and they've got a button detail on the wrists.

Pattern Garter Stitch Mitts by Ysolda Teague.
Yarn 1/4th a ball of Brook's Farms Acero (blue green purple black) coupled with 1/4th a ball of Knitpicks Shadow in Jewels.
Needles Size 4 Knitpicks needles.

Down.

Up.

Button button.

This is a headband they call Panta (Me? I like to call it a tiechel), which I have knit and unknit several times in my two years of knittingship. Boredom, running out of yarn, poor fabric drape...they're all to blame. But now, if it's not a pair of size 13 socks I'll knit it.

Pattern DROPS Headband
Yarn Mystery tweed
Needles Size 7 Susan Bates

This yarn looks exactly like Elsebath Lavold's Silky Tweed but knits up like twine. I hate how it feels, and I never even NOTICE how yarn feels. Between my time burning my hands on hot glassware in the lab, hot pans in the kitchen, hot metal in the metal shop, or a hot iron when I straighten my hair, I don't have a lot of sensation in my fingertips therefore I'm not as tactile as others. I bought three balls at WEBS once because I was seduced by the color which now reminds me a little bit of vomit.

Anyway my camera is broken so here are some photos from Photobooth, which means in every photo I am looking at my screen and not making eye contact and it looks like I have Aspergers.

Tzeitel, Hodel, and Chava.

Hi! These are socks for my roommate's boyfriend, Zach. According to Ruchi (roommate), Zach has sweaty feet, so either the wool content will absorb the sweat or make him sweat more, and then absorb it.

Pattern Thuja by Bobby Zeigler. Knitty, Winter 2005.
Yarn Knitpicks Essential in Grass. 2 balls.
Needles Susan Bates size 2 circulars.

My initial problem with socks wasn't so much heel flap or turning it, it was picking up the stitches after the fact without getting holes. When I saw the holes I'd rip the whole heel flap back because starting over is how I problem solve. So I have a lot of experience turning a heel which is the only not-boring part of a sock. Anyway, Zach's mom is a knitter and I took this opportunity to try out a few techniques:

1. The Classic Weil Gauge Modification
I knew I wanted to knit socks on 2s, whereas the pattern has the socks knit on 6s (WHO KNITS SOCKS ON 6s???) Hilariously, our gauges only difffered by HALF A STITCH PER INCH which would have me casting on 48 stitches ON TWOS instead of the recomended 44 ON SIXES. I cast on 52 for good luck. The mathematics of pattern adjustments aren't difficult for me because it's just a bunch of proportions which you can set up and solve verbosely.

2. Tubular Cast On
This isn't particularly new to me. I've practiced it a ton of times but I always thought it took too long to do for too little payback. Now that I'm a faster knitter and have sworn off the long-tail, it's worth it.

3. Magic Loop or something like it
I always thought this meant something else and I wish I had my facts straight before I went and did surgery on my too-long size 10 circular needles to make them small enough to accomodate my Foliage. And here I thought I was being so clever! I could have magic looped the shit out of it. Anyway I don't think what I'm doing is exactly magic loop, just kind of beating the yarn into submission around any circumference I desire. So I'm just going to call it CHLOE'S MAGIC LOOP OF TERROR

4. *THICK HEELZ* and *COMFY TOEZ*
I doubled the yarn for the heels and the toes. I just thought it would be more thick and comfy!

5. The stitch-markers-as-abacus method of keeping track of rows
If I had to do something five more times I'd just put five more stitch markers at the end of the round and remove one every time I did it. It worked with 100% more efficiency than writing that information down, because when I have to write anything down I don't, making me 0% efficient at writing things down.

I'm wearing my poms underneath these socks for added bulk to my feet so that I can try these on and photograph them. These socks are knit for a man and I have little dainty girly feet.

Some people are pigeon-toed. Some people think it's cute to be pigeon-toed. And some poeple's feet turn toward 3 o'clock when they walk down stairs when feet generally point to 12 o'clock.

Hello! This is the Banana Republic Hat for my friend Chantal's birthday. Chantal looks gorgeous in green. As I was knitting it I felt like I had fiberglass filaments in my eyes and nose. I'm not allergic to anything so I don't know what's up with that. I would hate for this to make my friend uncomfortable but nobody mentioned anything on Ravelry and people were even making stuffed bears out of this - stuffed bears FOR CHILDREN - so I'm hoping it's just me.

I met Chantal on the first day of our summer-long Organic Chemistry intesive. She was my best friend from the first day to the last. Two weeks after I met her, Berroco announced their fall preview and there was a sweater named Chantal. That's my first Chantal knitting story, and this blog post is my second.

I used the three patterns available and just combined them, kind of like making a baby with three parents. I'm not so happy with the unevenness of my stitches (I was using my mutilated 10s) but nowadays manufacturers make machine-knits look like they have character so it's not an issue.

Pattern The Craftster One
The Robin's Egg Blue Hat
The One That is Available as a PDF
Yarn Berrocco Air in green, from the charitable Cirilia
Needles Size 10 Susan Bates circs
Other Materials A suitable button that I got at BUTTONS.

This is the "From Now On" part of the post.
1. I had to thread the "base" of the hat with some leftover yarn to give it some structure because after blocking it just lost all its shape. I blocked this hat to even up the decrease pattern on top because it always bunches up when I do it and I think from now on I'm going to alternate a row of stockinette in with each decrease row.

2. I think I'm going to abandon the long-tail cast on forever and just go for tubular if there's ribbing involved, or provisional in all other cases. With long-tail either I overestimate by like a kilometer or I underestimate by too many stitches to just increase on the first row. It's stretchy but a bind off just looks so much crisper and I have more control over it. The long-tail cast on is the worst part of knitting next to 1x1 twisted rib but without the "it was worth the effort" sensation. So from now on it's so long to the long-tail!

Pretty decreases that happened all too suddenly.

The yarn it shimmers.

Anyway so I spent some time with my friend Joe "AS SEEN ON LAST COMIC STANDING" DeVito the other night and realized that I am incredibly self-conscious (self-deprecatingly proud) about the knitting thing. Like I say "knitting" and then I feel like I have to mention how I do the AARP crossword every day or how I carry Tums with me everywhere because of my bad heartburn. Recently someone asked me what I was doing at the moment and I actually said "knitting my roommate's boyfriend a sock and missing Jeopardy." For all we know, from that statement my roommate is my roommate in a nursing home and the boyfriend is a man she met after her first husband of fifty years died. But I mean all that stuff (the crosswords, the knitting, but not so much the acid reflux)...that STILL makes me cooler than like Hannah Montana and texting to vote in American Idol and watching movies on my telephone right?

No it's not because I had to think REALLY REALLY HARD to come up with just THREE examples of what people are into today. It's like with every stitch I just go back in time a little bit. Wait, and I'm BLOGGING about this, what the HELL am I talking about???

So, in the most traumatic knitting experience of my life, in May I dilligently knit the two center panels of Eunny Jang's Print O' The Wave Stole in Malabrigo lace. Malabrigo, by the way, is NOT VERY ELASTIC (foreshadowing!). It didn't have a single mistake. In July, I grafted hundreds of stitches to unite the two panels, and upon mock-blocking it upon my bed (stretching it out to see how it looked, you know, to appreciate all my hard work), my inelastic, too-tight sewing job snapped and the thing ripped down the center. I put it in a bag and threw it into the back of a closet. It wasn't until the end of August that I picked out the ripped yarn and unraveled a few rows of each panel and then threw it BACK INTO THE BAG and into the back of an even deeper closet until like, last week.

I didn't like the idea that my only set of size 2 needles were like, BABYSITTING this unfinished object and I didn't like the idea that I bought Malabrigo just to be ashamed of it and keep it in a bag. Even though my feelings were still hurt I tried picking up where I left off, but because the pattern was no longer in my immediate consciousness, because I didn't know how far I ripped back on each panel, because stitches got dropped or bars-that-could-be-yarnovers got picked up instead, but most importantly, BECAUSE I HAVE A BALLWINDER, I decided to unravel the whole thing. Unfortuantely, because Malabrigo is so sticky and it had been inert for about six months, I kind of killed the yarn. In the end I had two not-continuous balls of Malabrigo lace to contemplate THE FUTURE with.

Above is Branching Out, which utilizes the Malabrigo yarn doubled with leftover Knitpicks Shadow from my first Kiri. It seemed that pairing these two yarns is an obvious, if not inadventurous choice as they're both dark blue merino laceweight yarns. But then I got all analytical.

The two yarns are actually quite disparate. The Shadow (right) is not exactly blue, it has a chromatic range from blue to blue-green to a very pronounced violet. The Malabrigo (left), which is solidly blue, has qualities relating to value, as in light and dark, but all the shades are still the same tone of blue. These are all technical things that I relate to painting or drawing, so for those who never took studio art in high school, I made some swatches:

In color, it is easier to see that the Shadow (right) has more of a chromatic variety than the Malabrigo (left). If we were convert these colors to grayscale so we can observe value only, it is easier to see that Malabrigo has a richer tonal scale than the Shadow:

When working these two yarns into the same garment, the result is more successful than I would have imagined, as each yarn makes up for what the other lacks. The Malabrigo provides richness and depth, and the Shadow gives visual interest and variety. On a tactile level, the resulting fabric is spongy and soft. (In fact, my brother is walking around with it around his neck right now flapping the ends in my face and, in a Mick Jagger accent, saying It's so fluffy it's so fluffy. Okay he's gone.) I chose to knit Branching Out because I was horrified to learn that I have been slip-slip-knitting improperly and I wanted a simple project to remind me how to do it right again because it's so fundamental. Branching Out was actually one of the first things I ever knit because I wanted to work on my decreases. I had been slip-slip-knitting improperly then too. It's amazing how many ways there are to be wrong!

Pattern Branching Out By Susan Pierce Lawrence. Knitty, Spring 2005.
Yarn Malabrigo Lace in Marine, Knitpicks Shadow in Jewels. ~ 1 ball each.
Needles Size 7 Susan Bates

Yeah clearly someone needs to enroll in Photography for Non Majors.

Hi you guys how is everybody. I'm feeling much better thank you. This entry has a lot of parentheses (I have a lot of interjections.) My first finished object of the year is (ugh, yes) a Clapotis.

This is not my first or second Clapotis, but it's my first clapotis scarf. I feel like this absolves me somewhat. I only did one repeat of the increase section and intended to knit until I ran out of yarn. Well I have about a fifth of a ball left and this thing is longer than most basketball players are tall. It can be wrapped around the neck no less than twice, which is good because it's so drapey that two neck wraps would provide a nice amount of neck shielding for the intended wearer, Jay's mom. Jay's mom is a native of Quebec province, and since the Clapotis is hella French, I can bring this over on my bicycle, in addition to the baguette I baked, sporting my moustache (which, incidentally, is not me of trying to be French, but an innate property of me being a dark-haired Jew. A tiger can't change its stripes, but I suppose it can have them waxed every six weeks.)

The yarn, a donation from Cirilia, beguiled the HELL out of me. It was wound like Noro is wound, and it looked to me like Silk Garden, however, it was clearly a fingering weight. So it may be Silk Garden Fine or Silk Garden Lite or whatever, which I didn't know was even manufactured because I never heard about it. Nonetheless, it was perfect for this project in the way it draped and the way the colors coexisted with one another (not sure what this property is called). It makes a lovely finished garment.

Knitting it kind of sucked though because about a third of the way into the project I ate some smoked lox with my hands and so for the rest of the project the Clapotis smelled like Nova Scotia.

Pattern Clapotis, by Kate Gilbert. Fall 2004 Knitty.
Yarn Noro Silk Garden Fingering. Maybe. Brooks Farms Acero. Definitely.
Needles Size 7, Susan bates

Did I block it? YEAH I blocked it. I also purled through the back on each side of the dropped stitches for x-tra structure.

Clapotis in three parts.

This is the length.

Double wrap around the neck. Xmas is RIBS!

Hi I'm sick how are you? I knit Shedir and heavens, what a frustrating knit. I'm glad it's over. It was done over three days of sickness in time to give to my brother's girlfriend who is coming for the New Year.

FIRST it was stressful because of the ribbing and I hate ribbing. THEN it was stressful because of the cables. Cables are annoying. I know how to do it without a cable needle...they're just annoying! THEN it was stressful because it looked like I was running out of yarn and I was panicking THE WHOLE TIME. Toward the cap decreases I had to sacrifice all the rows that didn't have cables which is a shame because the only reason I knit this was so that I could incorporate that pretty star effect on the top of the cap and I had to SACRIFICE HALF OF MY FAVORITE PART that I was looking forward to, so now it looks kind of like a flower AND NOT A STAR. The fourth and final stress was something that was irritating throughout the whole project - I made the decision to twist every knit stitch and that sucked. So there was both acute and chronic irritations throughout this project. Anyway it's a little big and I probably should have used size 2 needles, I probably wouldn't have run out of yarn that way and I could have had my star. I also eliminated one of the pattern repeats and I was glad to have done so! I didn't have time to block this sucka and who cares?

Pattern Shedir by Jenna Wilson. Knitty Fall 2004.
Yarn Calmer from Rowan via Cirilia, in a color I call "lettuce"
Needles Size 3 Takumi Premium DPNs

Yet another photo where I am wearing something I knit for somebody else.

Shedir on the bed-ir.

This is all the yarn I had left!!!

Lastly, here is a picture of a sculpture I did in September next to one I did last year. For those not in the know, I'm doing an art minor where I go to school with a focus in metal sculpture. I used to love it but now I hate it because everyone in the department is a jerk. ONE BIG JERK!

So I made a big ass diamond out of steel this fall and the popsicle is from last semester. I never want to take another sculpture class ever but I have to take one more to get my stupid minor. Remind me to care.

Hi blog! Today I am going to present scarves for the holidays but not the people wearing them.

I knit the first scarf over Thanksgiving, a holiday gift for my roommate and best friend, Ruchi. I used the Multidirectional Scarf Pattern and Noro's Kujaku, which I knew she would totally love because she loves colors and who wouldn't love a little bit of Noro? The Multidirectional pattern is a great way to show it off and it was amazingly easy and Noro is a pleasure to work with. Ruchi got like ten thousand scarves for the holidays but I knit mine and thought about her through every single stitch, therefore I win based on the model of elitist sentimentality (because it's handmade, it's automatically better, even though it might not be).

Ruchi got me a skein of handdyed yarn from the Union Square market and I can't wait to make it into something amazing. She also got me chocolate which I ate all of within 24 hours but this is a yarn blog and not a chocolate blog!

Pattern Multidirectional Scarf, by Karen Baumer
Needles Hard bamboo needles I got at Webs, they're one of my favorites
Yarn Noro Kujaku, gifted from Cirilia, two balls thoughtfully in the same colorway (perfect) and may be discontinued.

The next scarf is the Irish Hiking Scarf for my mom's husband, John. I used three leftover balls from my stockinette Mariah because it was the only yarn I had onhand that was even close to the correct amount. When I envisioned this scarf I was hoping to use Valley Yarns' Berkshire Bulky in their lighter shade of gray, but it was not to be because I only had about one-and-a-half balls. It was blocked aggressively because my mom harangued me about how it was going to be too short and as a result it lost a little bit of it's ability to contract and be "squishy" though I will say it is still squishy nonetheless. I blocked it while listening to older episodes of Ready, Set, Knit!, which I am making my way through.

Pattern Irish Hiking Scarf, from Hello Yarn
Needles Size 7, Susan Bates
Yarn Valley Yarns' Amherst in Charcoal.

I realized one of my favorite things to do is to sit in bed and knit and watch movies. Its' like the ultimate experience. I'm sixty.

The pattern for this hat was easy; modifying it to get the perfect fit took effort. I saw this pattern in the fall Knitty but it didn't register until I saw Cirilia's version and I was blown away by the hotness. In the first trial I knit it flat on size 11s because 11 straights were the only needles I had above an 8. It was a massive disaster. I finally caved and bought some size 10 circulars but they were 29" in circumference, so I cut them and taped them together and knit the whole thing very cautiously while watching The Birdcage and a-movie-which-shall-go-unnamed with my friend Mitali. As per the advice on Ravelry, I knit the crown for the "not-chunky" version and did only 1.5 pattern repeats, though I wonder if I could have gotten away with only one. I decreased every other stitch and then knit six rounds of twisted rib LIKE CIRILIA DID on size 7s. And I'll be honest. I thought this hat came out horribly and I was so disappointed until I straightened my hair (I have very curly, voluminous, and silly looking hair). It/I look a lot better now.

The yarn I used came from a massive sampler donation from Cirilia (I officially have a 'stash' now!), it's this gorgeous chunky olive tweedy stuff, I'm not sure who the manufacturer is but it is absolutely perfect for this hat. Cirilia Cirilia Cirilia!

Pattern Emilee Mooney's Foliage from Fall 2007 Knitty
Yarn It's a mystery.
Needles Size 10 29" circs that became 12" circs through mutilation. And size 7 circs. Susan Bates, I think they're great personally.

Forgive the moroseness of these pictures - I realize it could be construed as adolescent pretentiousness but IT'S WINTER =(

Popping Into Frame

My hat without me.

The best(?) part about this hat is that if I slouch it forward it becomes a newsboy hat!

Also I have a crush on Peter Jacobson, who plays Dr. Taub on House. I think he's just so fine. Date me Peter Jacobson!

Hello I feel fine thank you. I am presenting toe-up Jaywalkers, which were fun to knit. I bought one 400-yd skein of yarn which I approximately wound in half and then used one of the balances in my chemistry laboratory to get it exactly 50/50. CHEMISTRY IS COOL.

I have narrow feet so I made the overall sock narrower and wasn't so aggressive with the heel flap. I threw in some calf increases toward the end and used up all the yarn. They're tall. They are very cute even though the yarn is a little bit itchy for my sensitive shins and ankles. I knit these socks mainly during P-Chem lab lecture and History of Performance Art. These are my first toe up socks and my second Jaywalkers, but these are also my first toe-up Jaywalkers and my first Jaywalkers that I didn't totally screw up.

Pattern Toe-Up Jaywalkers, from Natalia Knits.
Yarn Lana Grossa Meilenweit 100 Bosco (pink, purple, red)
Needles Size 1, Susan Bates

I haven't given up on the Swell hat. My itsy-bitsy roommate looked cute in it so I added 12 more rows of stockinette before the decreases so that it would fit her a little better. After that modification it fits even me now, even though it's a little tight where the stranding is, meaning my floats are too tight. Also, I still look stupid in it. I'm going to knit another one of these hats with modifications for a friend for the holidays.

Check me out! Since I last posted the screen snapped off my laptop and the very next day I got a brand new Macbook Pro (savings are nice!). So now I've got one of them cameras on my display so I can take photos of my face!!

In my sculpture class a boy had one of them hats with earflaps and tassles and I put it on my head and told him I could make one. He didn't care but so I set forth to make Swell from Knitty. Never did I think I would ever make a hat with earflaps and tassles. I guess I forgot that I have a lot of hair because I made the small size and that was a big ole mistake. The thing fits more like a yarmulke than a hat. Right now I am wetblocking it over my head and I smell like a damp sheep-alpaca blend. I'm certain that snipping the floats will loosen the thing up a bit but since I don't wear hats with earflaps and tassles I'm probably going to give this thing to someone with a small head who would. I'm probably going to also add one of those pom poms but not a pom pom attached directly to the hat, but attached to a tail which is attached to the hat.

Pattern Swell, from Knitty
Needles Size 5 circs, Susan Bates
YarnValley Yarns' Berkshire Bulky, pink and gray (love the stitch definition of this yarn...my gauge swatch is the most successful aspect of this project).

This is not the first time I have knit something kind of useless. Honestly, I only like ribbed hats. I keep starting them and quitting because they're so damn boring but I really need one for the winter. Secretly, I was very much hoping that it would reveal itself that I look totally cute in earflap-and-tassle-hats but alas. Before too long I'm about to finish my second of my pair of toe up Jaywalkers and may I say that they are gorgeous.

HI HOW IS EVERYBODY? When this knit blog was on LiveJournal I had eighty people who read it. Now that I host my own blog zero people have read it in the past three days. SAD. AND THEN in the middle of me updating this post, my computer fell and now it's being HELD TOGETHER WITH THE GLUE THAT COMES OUT OF A GLUE GUN. I've been waiting for the new Macbook Pros to come out since the summer and now I need one more than ever.

Anyway my camera is out of batteries so I was unable to take pictures of my latest finished object, a heavily modified version of Jodi Green's Mariah. BUT THERE ARE PICTURES. I made it out of Amherst by Valley Yarns in Charcoal. I wanted a hooded sweatshirt for the fall and that was that. I'm not much into cables so I eliminated those and did it all in stockinette. I also added some garter edging to the wrists of the sleeves and an applied i-cord for the hood in Berkshire by Valley Yarns in a light gray.

I used size 7 needles like Jodi did but when I swatched, my gauge was looser than hers, so I divided the two and multiplied every stitch count in the pattern by that number. I think that's a lot easier than reswatching on different needles...it's more quantitative and I'm into that. I omitted the square neckline and couldn't understand the hood directions so I did my own thing with the hood (grafting the two sides together - unwise!) I ended up with a hood that came to a perfect point and had to sew that down and block it over a bowl to get the hood to look not retarded. I steam blocked the sweater long to cover all of my hips, and also to even out the back, as the decreases before the hood caused these like bulges which is not an isolated problem, according to one knitalong. Zipper installation was easy and it only looks sloppy on the inside but I can cover that if I so want. So far the sweater is extremely warm and it fits flatteringly and I love it. The things I would have done differently are a looser applied i-cord, would have been more precise about the hood, and shorter sleeves by about an inch. I also think maybe the hood is a little short because there isn't much "give" but that's not such a problem. This was my first sweater!

Pattern Mariah, mad modified.
Yarn Amherst by Valley Yarns in Charcoal (main), Berkshire by Valley Yarns (contrast) in "Gray"?
Needles size 7 circs, Susan Bates!!

This is me trying it on before seaming, before I started the hood but after I completed the yoke. I was so excited that it fit that I ran to find my roomate, forgetting there was an entire ball of yarn attached to me. My roommate had me pose with the yarn. Chic!

This is me with Mariana, the head of the Fine Arts Organization on campus. We were at the installation of a sculpture show that I helped organize and am participating in. She knit the hat that she is wearing. I was talkin' sleeves.

TRIANGLE OF YARNSTUFF. To the left is Mariana's boyfrined Nick in a seed-and-stockinette hat (also, note the boa. We were breathing in feathers for hours.) Center: Mariana works on a blanket. Right: Me in my friggin hoodie.

Right now I'm working on toe up Jaywalkers (first toe up socks!) and I'm going to start my holiday knitting relatively shortly.

These are socks for my welding mentor, John. He knew I was a knitter and mentioned at least a few times about how he loves wool socks. I made him these for his birthday and on the person whom I tested the fit, they said the socks felt footgasmic. I was afraid of running out of yarn and I had this leftover green yarn from Knitpicks from a long while back so I used those to make a contrast heel and toe.

Pattern Common sense, they're socks.
Yarn Regia 4-ply tweed (main), Knitpicks Essential (contrast)
Needles Size 1 Susan Bates DPNs.

I built some gloves for the winter recently. I consider them "free" gloves because all the yarn that I used was yarn that I purchased and used for other projects.

Pattern Common sense from how I knit the Endpaper Mitts
Yarn Dale of Norway Baby Ull in 9013, Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud in Peppermint (doubled); fingers in Knitpicks sock yarn in a colorway called Paper Dolls (discontinued)
Needles Size 0 for cast on, size 2 for everything else. Susan Bates!

The body of the glove is comprised of the green Dale of Norway Baby Ull that I used for my Endpaper Mitts. I had a ton of it left over. It wasn't knitting up thick enough, so I joined it with Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud, two strands. I bought it over a year and a half ago to make Branching Out and for whatever reason I doubled the yarn when I wound it into a ball after finishing it. It was good to use it the hell up, plus it made my glove SO SOFT and the yarn was just the right thickness after adding it.

The fingers and cuff are knit from leftover Knitpicks sock yarn used for my ugly ass Jaywalkers. I had over a ball left over because I bought way too much. I think the yarn knits up much better when it's striping over a smaller amount of stitches than ugly and varigated over a whole sock.

The Alpaca Cloud is pink and the Baby Ull is green - these are complementary colors, and I was hesitant about what would happen when I used them together. Mixing complementary colors gives a neutral tone and I was afraid I would end up with something vomitrociously close to brown. It really toned down the green, which by contrast made the fingers "pop" because, in addition to being ridiculously bright on their own, they were next to a neutralized tone.

The gloves were not without problems. I still consider myself an inexperienced knitter, so I didn't pick up enough stitches in the right places along where the fingers join the body of the glove. It's only a big deal when the gloves are laying flat, which they won't be when I'm wearing them.

Close up of the contrast between the fuzzy, soft Alpaca and the Dale baby Ull.

Joinery issues.

BEFORE I CONTINUE! Today at the salon where I was getting my hair cut they played THE FINAL COUNTDOWN! I smirked!!

I started Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts the second I finished the Poms and regretted my color choice immediately. AS AN ARTIST I know implicitly why a palette offends me but that generally doesn't stop me from putting together incredibly offensive palettes. For instance, I initially paired this hideous green with red but it was just too much of a risk, so I switched to the red to black. And the black? Totally safe and boring! I'm not sure what this green yarn is - if it's "lettuce" or can be passed off as "mint," (the true color isn't as yellow) but I know it offends me as all greens do. They were fast and fun and easy, and I recommend that everybody knit a pair because they look cooler than they were difficult to knit, which they weren't. But they still look very cool.

Pattern Endpaper Mitts by Eunny Jang
Yarn Dale of Norway Baby Ull Superwash, one ball 9013 and one ball 0090
Needles Susan Bates sizes 0 and 2 Aluminum

An inside-out view of the "floats"

Hi how is everyone? I was just in Boston for a week. It was there that I finished the second of "the Poms." It took me six weeks to get through the first sock because I had a lot of problems. I screwed up majorly in two places. I liked to knit these in public because they looked so cool. They're very comfortable, but I was just not into it. I feel like my work does not do the yarn justice and I therefore find it very hard to take pride in this work. And yet I post about it! Nobody reads!!

Pattern Pomatomus by Cookie A.
Yarn Lorna's Laces in Tuscany, bought on the cheap from Cirilia
Needles Susan Bates Size 0 Aluminum Needles (I have tiny feet)

Seriously, you don't even want to know. I bought this yarn in spring 2006, started the Jaywalkers like a million times, ripped them completely a million times, started again in February 2007, ripped them completely, started again somewhere in April 2007, ACTUALLY GOT PAST THE HEEL FLAP, and then ripped them back completely because they were too big. I cast on again on size 0 needles (my feet are a six!) and finished them. The yarn I used is a Knitpicks yarn and thank goodness it's discontinued. AS AN ARTIST it offends my sensibilities. I finally finished them in the middle of July. I decided to overdye them very slightly with indigo RIT, but even though I am 15 credits away from my degree in chemistry I forgot all I learned about making solutions and ended up dyeing them completely blue. I spent an entire day agitating them in water that burned my hand and a ton of TIDE with Bleach Alternative and now I have slightly felted, mottled gray Jaywalkers that shrank even further.

They fit amazingly.

Pattern Jaywalker, by Grumperina
Yarn A discontinued shade of knitpicks Ugly
Needles Ultimately Susan Bates Size 0s

The yarn in its natural state.

This is my second Kiri, knit in "Gold" Kidsilk Haze for my mom's wedding. (She did not wear it at her wedding.) The shawl points are missing because I did the wrong bind off, but where the points should have been, there are clear glass beads. I also didn't do the edging because I thought I could do an extra repeat AND the edging but I was wrong.

Pattern Kiri Shawl
Yarn Kidsilk Haze
Needles Susan Bates Quicksilver, Size 8 (my inaugural needles!)

This is the Kiri Shawl! I only screwed up one leaf and it was my first major lace project. I weighed down the shawl points with pink beads and gifted this shawl to my friend Ruchi. Every woman must have a lace shawl I knit another in Kid Silk Haze for my mother for her wedding. She did not wear it at her wedding.

Pattern Kiri, from alltangledup.com
YarnA knitpicks laceweight yarn
Needles Susan Bates Quicksilver, size 8. The first needles I ever bought!

This is my second Odessa hat. I knit it for my grandmother who never even took it out of the bag. I mentioned this to my dad a year later when I found it at the bottom of a drawer in the original bag and he got all upset and told me that she can't even go outside what use will she have for a hat? Yeah. I'm the asshole for giving someone a handknit gift.

These photos were taken in January of 2008, lest you think it's anachronistic that I'm photographing something knit in 2006 with a gadget that didn't hit the market until 2007. It's my dad's, by the way. I would never.

Pattern Odessa by Grumperina
Yarn Mystery worsted from a Brooklyn Yarn Store
Needles Size 6 bamboo DPNs.
Other This item uses pink beads that I don't know why I have them or where I got them.

In the background: a painting my dad did in the 70s.

I knit a Clapotis. Who didn't! This is actually my second Clapotis; the first was for my mother for Mother's Day, 2006. I used a Knitpicks yarn in "her" colors and it pooled like crazy. My mother never wore it because she thought it was too short. Till this day she still bugs me about making it longer and I just can't explain to her that I don't know how to do it because it was knit on the bias. This Clapotis was for my dad's girlfriend and I haven't heard a single complaint.

PatternClapotis, by Kate Gilbert
YarnA Knitpicks Yarn!
Needles Size 8 Susan Bates Quicksilver. THE NEEDLES I LEARNED TO KNIT ON.

This is Grumperina's Odessa Hat. I knit it in the same color as the one she displayed it in, because I lack creativity hardcore. The only reason I didn't use the same color beads is because the store didn't have them. I knit another one for my Grandmother in like a wine color with pink beads, and she never even took it out of the bag.

Pattern Odessa, by Grumperina
Yarn Some Knitpicks DK in Cornflower
Needles Size 6 Bamboos