One last look at the baby sweater

Who was I kidding? I thought I could make up a better hat? Snort. I went back to the pattern and I'm quite happy with the end result.



I did improvise the socks. They're not fabulous but they'll do.

And now it occurs to me that I had promised to confirm the source of the pattern but never did. Both the hat and sweater are indeed from Knitting on the Net. The sweater, designed by Jeannie Leech, can be found here and the matching hat by Bonnie Brann is right about here.

podcasts

With tongue firmly in cheek, I would like to warn everyone to beware the Knitpicks podcast. I suspect Kelley Petkun of slipping in some very persuasive subliminal messages.

I used some birthday cash to buy myself an iPod and subscribed to a few knitting podcasts, starting with Knitpicks. After a few episodes of "Once upon a time, there was a knitter who loved books," I found myself making an extensive list of must-haves for my knitting library. Then I subscribed to audible.com so I could read while I knit, just like Kelley does. After all the talk about the development of The Catalogue, I had to open a Knitpicks account so I could see this wonder for myself (it still hasn't arrived). This morning my transformation to Bot-hood became complete as I submitted my first Knitpicks order: circular needles, of course. Kelley loves her circs. I ordered the nickel-plated Options set and a 2.00 mm to give magic loop another try at Kelley's urging. My trusty DPNs are glaring at me from across the room.

As a quasi-semi-independent thinker I am a little uncomfortable about this behaviour. I do not know who this Kelley person is, except that she has a whole lot of stuff she wants to sell me, and I am baffled as to why I am obeying her every command.

While I'm on the subject of podcasts, though, I thought I'd give my impressions of those I've listened to so far. Except for Knitpicks, I have only listened to one episode of each podcast, so feel free to take my comments with the proverbial grain of salt.

Knitpicks, of course, appears to have become my early favourite. I even went back and listened to all the back issues. Kelley speaks in this extremely careful, slow, almost hypnotic voice with occasional forays into rather forced enthusiasm. Perhaps the hypnotic tone is behind her ability to make me buy stuff from her. The show is obviously scripted, though she tries to make it sound spontaneous, but as a control freak I am quite happy with the lack of meandering. Most programs have a technical segment at the front, usually covering a basic skill in a long description that I cannot imagine anyone being able to follow. Then there's a book segment, always opening with the quote above, and then a chat about what's on Kelley's needles. Occasionally, though, the show is dedicated to an interview with a knitting celebrity. Overall it's a nice balance and an freakish exercise in mind control. Four stars.

OK, now for Lime and Violet. I will not make a final judgment having only listened to one episode, but thus far my stodgy middle-aged brain cannot comprehend their popularity. They shriek, they giggle, they snort, they tell long stories in junior-high verbiage, and they rarely manage to bring the subject around to knitting. Now, I am not and have never been a person who delights in Girl Talk so perhaps this just ain't my cuppa tea. One and a half stars.

Remember the university professor who could never remember what his lecture was supposed to be about? He goes off on so many tangents that the lesson runs long and he never does get to his point. This is the guy in Stitch Stud and His Bride. Dude's a rambler, and he keeps jostling his microphone. The control freak in me bristles. I have already unsubscribed because, jeez, he didn't even force me to buy anything. Two stars.

Cast On with Brenda Dayne appears to have been the prototype for the Knitpicks show. Cast On has been around longer, but when I listened to it I could have mistaken Brenda for Kelley. Like Knitpicks, Cast On has a set format, a slow, hypnotic speaker and strong knitting content. I like it. I could do without the musical segments, but the music was pleasant enough to knit by. Three and a half stars.

Lion Brand has a brand-new podcast called YarnCraft, and heaven help me if they start forcing me to buy from them too. The host describes herself as a new knitter, which I admit did put me off at the start (call me a snot, but I'd rather listen to someone who knows at least as much about knitting as I do). I take this to mean that the show will assume more of an interview format as the host doesn't seem to have much to tell us at this point. This episode featured a chat with an LB marketing person. They emphasize that the content will encompass all crafts that can use yarn. I'll give it a few more episodes before I make up my mind but it sounded largely advertorial. Oddly, more so than the subversive Knitpicks podcast, in which the advertising must be subliminal. Two and a half stars.

Knitgrrl claims to be a call-in show, but how in hell do you call in to a podcast? I'm sitting on my deck days after the thing was recorded. I'd hazard a guess that they're no longer reachable. I don't remember much of the episode I heard except that it featured an interview with the founder of crochetme.com, and that I had some trouble hearing her. It was inoffensive but sadly it did no damage to my credit card either. Two stars.

An F-ish O

I will not consider this Object to be entirely Finished until I've come up with a hat and booties to go with it. Ye Olde Charity Groupe likes to donate three-piece sets. So far I have knit one sock in matching yarn.



The website includes a pattern for a matching hat, but I'm not wild about the design. I think I'll just knit a plain cap once I figure out how many stitches it will require.

This, by the way, is the same sweater that I trashed last week because I had done it in stinky cheap yarn. It worked out quite nicely in Cottontots and was fun to knit. The pattern is a tad vague at times and it turned out to be a blessing that I had worked out the kinks on the first attempt. I wouldn't recommend this pattern for a beginner due to the lack of spoonfeeding.

On Unfrogworthiness

Sometimes frogging is just too good for a project. Frogging suggests that there's something about it that is worth saving so you're willing to spend that extra few minutes in ripping and rewinding the yarn. But a truly toxic project is not frogworthy. You just want to get it out of your sight, into the trash somewhere, as far from your Healthy Knitting Quarters as it can be. Outdoors would be ideal. This time I have selected the laundry room as my disposal site. Having already done this week's laundry I won't have to set eyes on this thing until next Monday.

The project was really not so ill-conceived. I had printed a pattern for a baby sweater from some website or other. I think it might have been Knitting On The Net. Will confirm this if ever an FO results. It called for worsted weight yarn so I thought it was the perfect project for some ultracheap acrylic I had picked up at a charity group meeting.

There is a reason such yarn is ultracheap, and that reason is as follows: it is absolute misery to work with, and I imagine it would be living hell to wear. The evil yarn in this case is called Mainstays. I think (I hope, please God) it has been discontinued, and I believe it was a house brand at Wal-Mart. Yes, if I understand correctly this is the stuff that undercut Red Heart.

The pattern was cute enough to keep me knitting though I cursed this horrible yarn all the way through. I felt terribly guilty that I might be playing a part in forcing a baby to wear it. There was a matching hat that I had decided not to make because I couldn't stand to think of this evil stuff on a soft little head.

Before I knew it the sweater was almost finished. I was knitting the ribbed neckband, maybe three rows left to go, when I noticed that I had messed up the garter stitch button band. I cannot explain it, I can handle lace but I have such a gift for screwing up garter stitch. I tried to drop the stitches down, made a little bit of a mess, got a teeny bit frustrated, and then stopped myself. Why the hell was I bothering? This thing was hell to knit, would be hell to wear, and it might be put on a person who would not be able to defend itself against it.

There was no point in frogging a dollar's worth of really bad clearance yarn. By now it was carrying all kinds of bad vibes anyway. So I ripped my needles out of the few remaining stitches and stuffed the whole mess into the laundry room trash, where even the mice will be smart enough to keep their distance.

I have started the same pattern again in Cottontots. It might work, it might not, but at least it's soft and I won't feel like a medieval dungeonmaster creating a new instrument of torture.

two FOs!

I had faith that it would happen eventually.

These are Straight Laced from the Red Bird Knits sock of the month club. They're 100% cotton so I expect their life span to be slightly shorter than the time it took to knit them. I did mess with the pattern a bit. I think the heel was supposed to be eye of partridge but I thought regular heel stitch would look better with the straight lines of the leg. And being a creature of habit I did my usual toe instead of the graftless version suggested.



And the crochet blanket is finally done too. I really like this ripple stitch because it looks like knit feather and fan. It's #140/141 in Jan Eaton's book 200 Ripple Stitch Patterns. I made up the edging on the fly and had to fiddle with it a couple of times before it looked decent. I ended up with a row of sc, a row of hdc, and a final row of crab stitch in a different colour.

out of sight, out of mind

You ready for my complaint du jour?

The husband, also known as the Walking Immune Response, has recently decided to have a coughing fit every time he enters our bedroom. Now, the bedroom is my domain (no, not in that way). I keep my current knitting projects in the bedroom as well as my computer and the best TV in the house. This is where I spend most of my spare time and it is only grudgingly that I occasionally descend to the kitchen or other points below. So when the husband develops an allergy to this room, my first thought is "Yippee! He'll have to move out and my room is all mine!"

But no. My yarn is banished instead. It's in the hall just outside the door for lack of a better home.

Now when I'm watching TV in bed I can't reach over and grab a project to keep my fingers amused. In order to knit while reading email I have to leave my desk and exit the room to find my work! As I'm sure you are able to understand, I am not accomplishing very much. After all, the knitting is more than four steps away, and I don't want to bring [gasp] animal fibres into the room when Mr. Wheezy is around.

The crocheted (acrylic) blankie, though, is in the home stretch. I'm on the first of two edging rows. Lacy (cotton) socks are somewhere in mid-foot. There is reasonable hope for both of them, especially on the cusp of a long weekend. There will be pictures soon. There will.