knitting in the dark

I’m still here. And I’m still plugging away at the shirt-stripe quilt. My mother’s coming to visit for a week next Wednesday, so I want to make sure I have all the triangles sewn into squares so she can help me complete the top; she’s much more practiced than I am with the long straight seams.

I have 209 completed squares and 142 half squares… not too much further to go. But I hate the pinning step before the final seam in each square.

I’m still really excited about this project (three years later…) and I cannot wait to have all the squares ready and move on to the layout!

The pieces for this sweater have been done for months. And the Project Spectrum blue/white/grey months are almost over, so I need to finish the two sweaters that were my goal for the first two months instead of starting new projects…

I’d never blocked a sweater properly before yesterday. I went the cheap route and bought two 32″x40″ pieces of 3/16″ foam core board from my favorite local art store, Pearl Paint, and drew a one inch grid onto them. Then I covered them in clear plastic recycling bags for “waterproofing.” They seem to work just fine for a total cost of under $10.

I love the way the pins line up. I used every single straight pin I owned and still would have used more if I had them!

It’s amazing the difference it makes in the fabric - I never would have guessed that it would have such a positive effect on this pattern! I always thought blocking would make things look sort of, well, flat. And it does, but not in a bad way. As Eunny says in her blocking tutorial, Block Me, Amadeus: “it’s the difference between a sweater that looks ‘homemade’ and one that looks ‘handknit.’” So I gave it a try and I see now what she meant!

Hopefully it will make a positive effect on the ease of seaming and how the whole thing drapes while worn, but for right now it smells like wet wool in my bedroom…

Ta da! Charcoal grey and white-striped Project Spectrum Jaywalkers:

started: 10 March 2007

finished: 21 March 2007

pattern: Jaywalkers (just like pomatomus: I think I’m the last one to the party)

yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in a self-striping purl exclusive colorway

needles: 2mm INOX dpns

notes: The Jaywalker pattern is great - it’s so easy and makes a very flattering fabric. Shepherd Sock is likewise awesome… why wasn’t I told about this yarn sooner? We’ll see how it holds up, but it’ll probably do well due to the nylon content. I made the leg longer than the pattern said to, but I have short feet so there’s always leftover yarn… even with this adjustment I still have a 3″ diameter ball left to make a pair of self-striping baby socks with:

I am starting my spring cleaning and have decided to organize my yarn and fabric stash this year. Most of the yarn is for planned or actual works in progress, but some is not; I put some things up on DeStash - Cash For Your Stash and some yarn I’ve given away. But the best part is that the yarn portion of the giant mess in my hallway:

Is now contained in a smallish (17″ x 13.5″ x 7″ tall) west elm media box, which fits on top of my bookshelf very neatly:

(The fabric portion of the stash is still to be sorted and organized, but I hope to clear out the rest of the plastic containers in the hallway by the end of the month…)

I’ve been feeling awfully uninspired to write for the last week. Mostly I was busy in tech rehearsal for AS YOU LIKE IT (see below), but then I had just a little spare time and mostly just wanted to actually knit and sew rather than talking about it. I did, however, take pictures. Here’s the Project Spectrum knitting I’ve done since you knew me last…

I purchased some purl soho exclusive self-striping Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock yarn:

And why didn’t anyone tell me how soft and squishy this yarn is? I love it!

This is the first completed sock - my very first Jaywalkers! On a color-appropriate background…

I don’t particularly like the way the colors overlap themselves for a few stiches every round and that the join spot rotates around the leg and foot, but it’s not so obvious when it’s worn instead of just sitting on the radiator. I absolutely adore how good Jaywalkers look on feet… they’re nice and slimming, even if one already has little ankles:

So I cast on and started the second; I tend not to get SSS as I really like to wear handknit socks and I usually can’t wait for the first sock to become a pair. The picture below is how far I got on just the first skein of yarn; there will be plenty of yarn left to knit baby-sized socks for either my new cousin or our friend Maud’s soon-to-be-born twins. I guess that’s one benefit to being a small person and having little size 36 feet.

I have two copies of this book, so one is for sale at DeStash - Cash for your Stash!, but email me if you don’t want to join the group over there and we’ll work it out…

This is my other current work project:

And the back of the postcard (with my name - still exciting!):

The official opening night is this Thursday the 15th, but it’s running until the end of the month - so go see it!

So I haven’t been completely ignoring my striped quilt as I may have implied in my last post… somehow I actually found the time to open up and oil my sewing machine (scary!), which I’ve never done in the four years since my grandmother gave it to me when I graduated college.

It now runs much more smoothly and makes much less noise. So I used it to get some quilt squares done!

And:

And then I sewed together some little triangles:

Then I sat down in front of the TV and did a large amount of ironing and pinning and now I have a bunch ready to sew together into squares:

It’s just so satisfying to open those triangles up and see how all the sides line up to make mitered corners. There are just SO many little triangles left still…

This is what I’ve been working on this week instead of my quilt and mittens:

tomorrow, March 10, for one night only: Taylor Mac, Scotty the Blue Bunny, and NakedGuyNYC perform at DUMBOLIO - hosted by the lovely and talented Ed Schmidt and lit by yours truly

After the replacement set of Blue Sky Alpacas’ 5″ double-pointed needles arrived and the needles were (again) splitting in a very unpleasant manner as I tried to work on my new cousin’s baby socks, I contacted the lovely customer service people at Blue Sky and they very kindly arranged to send me a check for the cost of the needles. The check arrived yesterday morning and with it they sent along a little yarn gift - some lovely Alpaca Silk in colorway #137 (Sapphire):

I plan on buying a few more skeins and making a cowl out of it wie the examples at purl. I love the idea of a cowl as I tend to wear scarves almost constantly (even inside) during the winter months as theatres in NYC can be very cold places - and a cowl is a scarf without the annoying hanging parts that can fall in the way of whatever I’m trying to do.