All posts by Chris

Alongs, Knitting, Those Cats

In which I achieve both Olympic Gold and Stashalong Failure

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Sorry to send so many of you off to get your eyes checked – I was really excited to have finished (including some steam blocking) and wanted to share but didn’t have time to goof around with the timer and all. Thanks for all your kinds words!

Here’s the sweater in action. (Ignore my red eyes. Me fixing red-eye results in eyes that look like bottomless pits. Trust me that the red-eye is better.)

Besides providing evidence of Chaos’ evil nature (the glow! the glow!), it should also give you a better idea of what a big cat he is. (He’s not fat, either.) This monster can handily fish things off the counter when he stands on his hind legs. But I digress. Back to the sweater…

It’s not easy to take a good photo of a black sweater that’s 50% silk – very reflective. What you can see in the picture below is that there were definite color differences between the skeins. It’s much less pronounced when I’m wearing it (and not being photographed). I didn’t knit from two skeins at once because that’s just such a drag to do when knitting in the round.

Pattern: Hourglass Sweater from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts

Yarn: Brooks Fiber Farm Four Play (50 silk/50 wool)

Modifications: As part of my training, I gathered advice from others who had knit the sweater (let us pause and give thanks for Google). Based on my research, I added some short rows to the back of the neck and am very pleased with the results – no sweater strangulation. I also decreased the size of the neck opening. I’m not a fan of bell sleeves, so I completely redid the sleeves. Finally, since I hate sewing (and with tips from Jeanne), I picked up and knitted in the hems and the neck – which meant that this sweater required very little finishing.

Thoughts on the Result: I love this sweater! I already wore it to work today. Circular swatch notwithstanding, my gauge on the body was a little loose while my gauge on the sleeves was a little tight (my average gauge was perfect!). My sweater fits more loosely than many other Hourglass Sweaters I’ve seen, but I think it’s still very flattering.

Thoughts on the Knitting Olympic Experience: If I planned and prepped for all my major projects like I did for this one, I’m sure I’d have a lot more knitting success stories. I was also very surprised at how quickly I knit this. Had I truly applied myself, I would’ve been done last weekend. Because I apparently don’t have a good grasp of my knitting speed and skill, I didn’t select a sufficiently challenging project. That said, I think I’d rather be in the “pleasantly surprised” boat than in the “oh oh, I think we’re sinking!” boat.

If you’re wondering what those blobs are at the bottom of the picture… That’s my leftover yarn. I originally had five skeins. I purchased two extra skeins, just in case… and I so didn’t need them. Of the seven skeins, I have three full skeins remaining (plus that little bit on the right). So, just to finish off my Stashalong aspirations in fine fashion, I headed over and joined the Rockin’ Socks Club. Sorry, Kim…

“Dang it, you really messed up my fur during that photoshoot! It’ll take me hours to get it just right. I can understand how yarn led you astray. Happens to me all the time.”
Alongs, Randonymity, Those Cats

B is for…

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Books!

(Yeah, ok, so I did D yesterday. Yes, I know that B doesn’t follow D. But since I started the ABC-Along with C, I’m playing catch-up. Onward!)

I’ve been a reader since I was 5 or 6 years old. We didn’t get to watch a lot of tv, but we were always encouraged to read. In fact, back in my days of internet dating, one of my major requirements was for being a reader over being a tv watcher. The bookshelf above is only one of several in my tiny condo. Plus all the books stored in boxes under the bed. Plus the big stack of library books…

So Amy had perfect timing with this book meme yesterday.

Meme instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you might read, cross out the ones you won’t, underline the ones on your book shelf, and place parentheses around the ones you’ve never even heard of.

The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby – F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – J. K. Rowling
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story – George Orwell
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
1984 – George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – J. K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
(The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini)
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 – Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons – Dan Brown
Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
(The Secret History – Donna Tartt)
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
(Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell)
The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens – Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement – Ian McEwan
(The Shadow Of The Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon)
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
Dune – Frank Herbert

B is also for Bad Black Cat. Saturday my friend Jan drove up from St. Peter. We went out for Thai at Ruam Mit Thai in downtown St. Paul and then saw a great show by Christine Lavin and Claudia Schmidt at the Fitzgerald Theater. (We did have our knitting backstage passes, but Christine was too frazzled from bad travel experiences to knit.) Jan slept on my futon couch and headed home bright and early Sunday morning.However, I had not cleared this visit with the Cat Chaotic and he was peeved.

“I don’t know where you get off having your friends over without asking me first.”

So peeved, in fact, that he is trying to eat the couch to punish me. My couch is not usually covered in Army camo – just when it needs to be protected from sharp pointy cat teeth. Please send wine (for me, not him – he’s too young to drink).

Alongs, Those Cats

D is for…

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Disjointed, which is what today’s entry will be.

D is also for Diablo II! At the beginning of every winter, I get sucked back into Diablo II for at least a few weeks. My character is a level 78 Amazon named Chrystabel… and it would be best not to ask how many hours of my life have been lost getting her to level 78. Let’s just say I could’ve knit several Alice Starmore sweaters or become fluent in Spanish. At the very least, I should obviously have knit poor Chrystabel a sweater and some leggings – like most female video game characters designed by men for men, she’s a bit nekkid:

Tangent: Chaos is not a big fan of Diablo II because I do not make an adequate lap while playing. He much prefers knitting.

And D is for… Diablo, brother of Chaos.

Tangent: Note that Diablo had Very Large Feet as a kitten. They both did. Not surprisingly, they both became Very Large Cats.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall – who’s the fairest cat of all?”

Olympic Knitting Tangent Update: I am in the home stretch on my sweater – I probably have less than 20 rounds left to knit. I should finish things up tomorrow. Thursday at the latest. I’ll post a picture then.
Contests

And the winners are…

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Danielle and Peevish!! I know, I know, I said there would be one winner. But there were just so many more great captions than I expected to receive… Thanks to everyone who participated – your very funny captions definitely improved my crabby, crampy weekend!

To select the winners, I numbered the captions and used this random number generator to generate two random numbers. Danielle and Peevish, if you could please drop me an email with your mailing addresses and some of the colors and types of knitting you love…

Oh, it seems Chaos would like a word with you all:

“How could you guys say such things about me?! I am stunned, and, well, shocked at the
things some of you were suggesting! Please send tuna to help ease my pain.”
Festing, Knitting, Those Cats

In which I don’t spin

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These are the people I spent my afternoon with:

If you’re astute, you’ll notice that they have spinning stuff. You might be thinking, “Chris, you don’t spin. Why did you spend your afternoon with some obviously lunatic spinners?”

A good question. Yesterday I realized that June of Two Sheep lives in Minnesota, only an hour south of Minneapolis. I mentioned in her comments where I lived, and June invited me to a monthly gathering of spinners at Creative Fibers, which is only about 10 minutes from my home. I wanted to meet an actual blogger who I hadn’t already known before I started blogging, so I headed over to Creative Fibers, Olympic knitting in hand.

Here’s June, prepping some cotton for spinning – check out the gorgeous sweater she’s wearing:

I spent an enjoyable afternoon listening to incomprehensible fiber talk, admiring lovely yarn being spun, laughing a great deal, and getting quite a bit done on my Olympic sweater (a very few more details on my sweater progress over at the Team Midwest blog).

Update: It turns out that I met a second blogger yesterday: Kerry of Furballs!

Chaos continues to be fascinated with my decoupage forms… Moments after this picture was taken, Boobzilla was knocked to the floor and much wrestling ensued. So much for redirecting his attentions…


“Mom, I think they make this stuff out of catnip!”

Thanks for all the fabulous captions, which have provided many smiles and giggles these past few days. Remember, even if you couldn’t think of a funny caption before, you have until 6 pm CST on Monday!

Contests

Contest!

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I’m a little crabby and a little crampy (why, yes, these are directly related) and a little chilly (it’s -3F here right now) this morning. You are all going to be much funnier than me today, so please caption today’s picture in the comments.

Caption comments made before 6 pm Central Standard Time on Monday, February 20, will be numbered and then I’ll use a random number generator to pick a number. The prize will be (you’ll never guess… really… never in a million years…) yarn! (What?! You guessed?!!)

Progress update: Sweater body to armpits, one sleeve done, and about 15 rows left on the second sleeve. Tonight I’ll finish the second sleeve, attach both sleeves to the body, and begin knitting the yoke. However, I’m going to lose quite a bit of knitting time this weekend… Details to follow on Sunday or Monday.

Get captioning! I need a giggle this morning.

Randonymity, Those Cats

In which I attempt to redirect his attentions…

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For those who were curious, here’s the mini dressmaker’s form that Chaos found so intriguing yesterday. I picked it up Tuesday for a little decoupage experiment after the Knitting Olympics. (Does the word “decoupage” give anyone else a total flashback to ’70s craft projects?!)

Something very cool and serendipitous happened yesterday. I was over at Pink Rocket’s and saw that she’s opening a store in the very near future. I left her a comment, asking if she’d take an order for a black cat softie. Then I went down to get my mail and found a box from Pink Rocket… Meet “Girlfriend”!!

“Wow, she’s pretty cute. But she doesn’t smell quite right…”
“Mom!!! She’s taking over!!! Mom!!!”

I think she’ll settle in just fine…

Thanks again, Pink Rocket!! I spent most of the evening just grinning at Girlfriend as she stalked along the top of the cds… while I wasn’t knitting away on my Olympic sweater, that is. Body done up to the armpits, sleeve one done up to where it will join the body, and sleeve two about 6″ along. And I think a bit of pinot noir really helped on the gauge issue… at least I didn’t care so much about it!

Alongs, Knitting, Those Cats

In which I actually post a progress picture

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Here’s my progress as of Monday evening – body done up to the armpits and first sleeve about 1/2 done. I’ll warn you that this is not a particularly photogenic project – look! Black blobs on the carpet… but wait? Where is the black blob? Hmmm…

The sleeve and I have have gone a few rounds of ripping. (Carole had warned me of hubris and offending the knitting gods in the comments on Sunday and she was so right.) I knew I didn’t want the bellshaped sleeves in the pattern, but I didn’t think through what I did want until I had cast on, sealed up the hem, and knit merrily away for a while. Finally, denial just didn’t cut it anymore. Rip rip rip, refigure the numbers, and off we went again.

Tonight I go home and take a hard look at the gauge on that sleeve compared to the body gauge… I’m thinking that, because knitting the sleeve is sort of like knitting a sock and I knit my socks tightly, my gauge on the sleeve is too tight. It might be mandatory that I drink wine while knitting the sleeves – what do you think?

Oh, I tracked down that missing blob:

“Go away. I haven’t forgiven you for that incident earlier. It’s not my fault when you lead me into temptation.”

Update: Go check out Gale’s pictures – she went and saw the care packages getting packed up for the Red Scarf Project! Thanks for letting us know, Norma!