Sock yarn rug

The yellow bin used to be full of sock yarn leftovers. It's now a rug.

Multiple choice test

This is a picture of:

a) The result of Paula's most recent attack of self-indulgence
b) Most of what was in and on the mailbox today
c) A pillow cover and at least two pair of mittens
d) All of the above

Of course it is d. It's all Knit Picks except for that brightly colored skein. That's this month's Mad Geek Tour offering in the colorway 42.

What I have been up to today

• Yarn from yesterday: I may have a trade in the works. All is well.
• Projects: all ignored for the moment except for that sock yarn rug. It's addicting. It's about two feet across now and I'm roughly halfway through the yarn bin. It's strangely exciting to have so much of those leftovers used up. It's also strange to be so addicted to something that's all half double crochet.
• Downton Abbey: people are posting thing they find to the swap thread in Ravelry. This led me to Sheena Rogers Designs on etsy. She's got these charming cross-stitch designs for mini cushions (pillows). I got the pattern for Highclere Castle (the real Downton).

  Another post ended up with me at Spoonflower. There was a cute print that would be perfect for the pillow back. I only bought a fat quarter of it. Well, it and a fat quarter of a Torchwood print by the same designer.

It may cause something else

I won't repeat all of my rant from the first time I got small amounts of novelty yarn in my Yarnbox. I will repeat this: if you are giving your subscribers something that they cannot easily find a use for, then make a suggestion or two.

I have canceled my subscription, so no more negativity will occur on this subject. On a positive note, I do like the colors and think the yarns would be cool together in a project. I wish I could think of one.

Great mail day

My yarns from A Hundred Ravens arrived (faster than I expected, too). This is Kyoto:

I like pink. I like gray. I really like them together.

This is Starry Night:

I have several Van Gogh-inspired yarns, but this may be my favorite.

I feel slightly less guilty about buying yarn for no reason except that I like it. This is because I found a pattern (recipe actually) for making a 10-sided rug out of sock yarn scraps. I have this big bin full of leftover sock yarn. The recipe says 4.4 pounds makes about a 50" rug. Uh, no problem there. How about wall-to-wall carpet?

At It Again

It being late night yarn shopping.

Step 1: I favorited a cute double-knit pillow pattern on Ravelry. The designer gave me the pattern as a gift because I was the 60th person to favorite the pattern. That's a special number to her. Cool!

Step 2: I head for my stash. Nope, nothing in the right color and yardage.

Step 3: After trying a couple of other options, I head for Knit Picks. They've got tons of colors and their prices are inexpensive.

Step 4: I decide to take a quick look through my Ravelry queue to see if there are some other things I can pick up. I get yarn for the Counting Crows mittens. I find enough yarn in stash for the Tardis Tam. I have some of the yarn for the Amaryllis Mittens, so I buy what I'm missing.

Step 5: I'm still short for free shipping. The amount I'm short is almost exactly the sale price of the newest Mochimochiland book.

Step 6: Clickty-click.

Use It project #2

Stupid Blogger will still not let me upload pictures from anywhere. My brain eventually woke up and I used Firefox.

I wanted to show that I haven't bailed on every project. These socks are the second in my Use It (or lose it) stashbusting project. The yarn came from Denmark and was in my stash just short of 5 years.

I got my yarn from Knit Picks today and immediately cast on the Trillian shawl. It's a good project for getting one's knitting confidence back. There's mostly garter stitch with an easily memorized border pattern. I'm having a good time using the Chroma yarn. The colorway's called Buttermint and it shifts from yellow to peachy pink to light green.

I gave into temptations and ordered a couple of skeins from A Hundred Ravens. Someone on Team Tardis for the Ravellenics is using a colorway called Starry Night. I think it may be exploding Tardis colors. While I was looking for it, I ran across a colorway called Kyoto. It's light pink and light gray and I <3 it.

Not knitting along

I just bailed on the Downton Abbey KAL. I survived the drama when there were problems with the first set of clues. I was really close to being done with them after clarifications were posted. Then I made the mistake of reading the Ravelry forum for the KAL. The picture of one part of the pattern looked NOTHING like what I had knit. The stitch count I had at the end was one off of what I was supposed to have.

Someone asked a question that I also had about the pattern. The answer was to do the pattern as written. I did the pattern as written and got it wrong. More than once. I got more than one completely different wrong result.

I'm not an expert knitter, but I do have decades (really) of experience. If I can screw up something up this badly, it's time to frog the yarn and save it for something that makes me happy. I don't need anything new to stress out about.

Unintentional Yarn Shopping

Hey Blogger? Could you get your act together and start supporting the latest release of IE? I can't imagine why you don't and why you're giving me error messages. You won't let me upload pictures. Kindly cut it out. not much love, Paula

My intentions were good. Well, kind of good. I decided to sign up for Ravellenics, Team Tardis. I'm going to do The Name of the Doctor scarf. It's a cool design done in double knit with laceweight yarn. I thought I had enough leftover blue yarn in my stash for a lot of it. I was wrong.

I was going to do the Trillian shawl with some long-stashed yarn. It turns out that I clicked the wrong version of the yarn when I entered it in Ravelry. The corrected yardage showed that I didn't have enough. I don't have enough of anything else, either.

I headed over to Knit Picks. It was the usual deal: why spend money on shipping if I can buy more yarn with the money and get it shipped for free? The scarf yarn's on the way, along with some for Trillian, plus some Felici sock yarn in a Halloween-ish colorway. The last one should be the only one to actually go into my stash. We shall see.

I talked myself out of the cat hoodie for the moment. I finished one of the six socks in progress. Then I pulled out some Sugar n Cream and am knitting a potholder as double knitting progress.

Startitis 2014, Episode 1

I've got three pair of socks started, two of them in the last 24 hours. I get through one pattern repeat and have to do something different. No knitting discipline at all.

My older cat, Misty, is nearly 16. She gets cold because she's lost a lot of insulation (weight's now about half of her highest). She likes to lie directly on heating vents, a fraction of an inch from a space header, or draped across my leg while I'm knitting. I've been thinking about knitting her a hoodie. Yes, there's a pattern for one on Ravelry. I expect that the next time I get tired of the socks I'll be casting it on.

In with the new

New for 2014 is my first Use It project. It was steamed but really needs blocking. I like Noro yarns.

The Downton Abbey KAL set up. Note the Jammie Dodger stitch marker. I got it in a set I got for myself for Christmas.

Out with the old

Advent calendar scarf, steamed a bit but still needs blocking:

Temperature scarf. If I was still working on this, I would have to find about three more yarns. Today's high is about 15-20 degrees lower than the lowest high temperature last year. Brrrr!

Wisdom from the Dowager Countess

I spotted that on Ravelry and couldn't resist. I also couldn't resist a Downton Abbey-themed swap. I guess I'm just obsessed with being obsessed with things. There's no new Doctor Who until the fall so my attention's been directed to Downton. And Sherlock, of course.

Whovian Mittens

This was posted on my web page several years ago. The web page was has disappeared. Weird! Someone asked me about it so here it is again. It's been a stressful day so prettier graphs and a pdf version will have to wait for a calmer time.

Whovian Mittens

Materials: Knit Picks Palette, 1 ball each Ash, Edamame, Turmeric, Cream, Eggplant, Thicket, Masala, Jay
You will only need a small amount of each.

Size 2/2.5 mm double-pointed or circular needles

Gauge: 8 stitches/11 rows to 1 inch

These are adult-sized.

For Mittens or Fingerless mittens, with Thicket, cast on 60 stitches. Work in K1, P1 rib for 12 rounds. Switch to Eggplant and knit 1 round. Begin following the chart.

Thumb opening occurs at the * on the chart. For the right thumb, knit 31. For the left thumb, knit 19. Knit the next 10 stitches onto a scrap of yarn. Move the 10 stitches back to the left needle and finish the row. Continue following the chart to the **.

For fingerless mittens, switch to Thicket and work K1 P1 around for 5 rounds. Bind off in ribbing.

For mittens, start decreases: With Thicket, knit 30, place a marker, finish the round. Starting with this round and repeating every other round, ssk, K to 2 stitches before marker, K2 tog, slip marker, ssk, K to 2 stitches before end of round, K2 tog. Continue to both follow the chart and perform the decreases until 20 stitches remain. Graft the top closed.

Thumb:
Remove the scrap yarn, carefully picking up the 10 stitches above and below the thumb hole. Using Turmeric, knit the first 10 stitches, make 2 stitches, knit the next 10 stitches, make 2 stitches. If you are using dpns, move the stitches around so they are evenly distributed (24 stitches total).

For fingerless mittens, knit 9 more rounds with Turmeric. Switch to Thicket. K1 P1 for 5 rounds and bind off in ribbing.

For mittens, knit 1 stitch with Turmeric. Add Masala and knit 7 stitches. Finish round with Turmeric, carrying the Masala along with short floats (catch the yarn about every three stitches). Refer to the chart and knit a single Dalek on the thumb. Break off Masala and knit one more row with Turmeric. Switch to Thicket and begin decreases:

1: Ssk, k8, k2 tog, repeat from *.
2: 4, 6: Knit around.
3: Ssk, k6, k2 tog, repeat from *.
5. Ssk, k4, k2 tog, repeat from *.
7. Ssk, k2, k2 tog, repeat from *.

Graft the top closed. Make a second mitten for the other hand. Weave in the ends.

Stripe Blank/Background X/Pattern Bottom half of Tardis Eggplant Jay Top half of Tardis Cream X is Jay O is Turmeric

All single stripes Thicket - K9 Edamame Ash Dalek Turmeric Masala Bowtie Ash Eggplant Jim the Fish Masala Edamame Mitten top Thicket -