Swatchless

Look at the goodies!!! I stopped off at the post office on the way to robotics this morning, and was thrilled to see that the package I got was a box full of my order from Paradise Fibers.  There’s some gorgeous  baby camel in there that I can’t wait to spin.  Also, and perhaps more importantly, there are two drivebands for my wheel.

After a long sleep tonight I’m going to attempt to change the band tomorrow.  It’s a job that requires a bit of wheel dismantling.  I hope I have the appropriate tools.  If I don’t, at least I know a robotics team that is happy to share!

So….this past weekend was the kick off for robotics build season.  It turns out that I’m putting in over 40 hours this week in robotics mentoring, so the knitting time is seriously limited.  I did start hat 40 one evening while at a mentor meeting, discussing robot designs and competition rules.

I did a little bit more over dinner (yes…with another robotics mentor)

To see robotics progress check here.

This is something that I’ve wanted to try for a while–thanks Santa for getting me Flying Saucer Sock Yarn from Schoppel Wolle and making it possible!

The spool of wool is wound with two strands, then injection dyed in a very small skein, so that when unravelled, each strand will form one ball, and if knit with the same needles and same tension, and from the same end of the sock, it will produce identical yet really crazy socks.  I’m keen on trying it out!

On Boxing Day my aunt and I set about winding the two balls from the one skein.  This is NOT AS EASY AS IT SOUNDS.  I don’t know how well it would have gone as a solo project–I was glad of the extra set of hands helping me out.

I didn’t see this video until later, but this shows how to do the unwinding.

The instructions state to pierce the center of the spool with a knitting needle/pencil, and suspend it with a string tied to both ends, looped from a handle or door knob.  That was easy enough to figure out.  The hard part came in the unrolling–maybe duelling ball winders would have been a good idea, but maintaining identical pacing of unwinding was the tricky part.  Just don’t be in a hurry when you are doing the unwinding.

I now have two balls of sock yarn ready to go!  I think toe up plain socks will show off the craziness the best, and allow for me to use all the yarn.

My mitten got done just in time!  It’s nice to start the year fresh with no knitting deadlines.

I had a great New Years Eve with my family.  We had a murder mystery party that had been slightly adapted–again with a mustache theme.

I believe this is the end of all mustache related events–for this year at least!

Today I went swimming, and when I swim length after length I get thinking about things.  Sometimes these things make sense.  Sometimes they are not even slightly joined up with other thoughts, or even with reality.  Usually when I swim my brain is focused on counting–counting strokes between breaths, counting breaths in a length, counting up all the lengths that I do…but then other thoughts start to creep in, like….how much does it cost for international postage….or…..I wonder if I have enough flour to make bread this afternoon…and suddenly my counting is all messed up.  Once I realize my counting is messed up, I try to backtrack to when I knew how many lengths I had done….I guess using the time elapsed and my general pace to estimate how many lengths I should have done….or I just keep on swimming until the time is up, ignoring the counting entirely.

I realized today, once I gave up on counting the lengths, that swimming and knitting have an awful lot in common.  They are both repetitive tasks that, once learned really well, can be done without much thought at all.  Both are challenging, and scary for the beginner, requiring careful supervision and a lot of trial-and-error learning.  You’re not likely to die from a beginner knitting accident though, and that’s a good thing!  Counting is essential in both activities.  I like to be able to quantify things with numbers, to say that I swam 40 lengths today, or that I knit 35 rows.  I’m also the kind of person that will lose track of both counts, and generally get into trouble later by estimating that maybe I’ve done 38 lengths instead of 36….just like I might stretch my knitting ever so slightly until it is exactly 10 cm long instead of 9.  Today I did 4 extra lengths just in case!

There’s pattern following in both swimming and knitting–go to a new pool, and you’ll see a different lane configuration with clockwise and counterclockwise rotations.  The pool that I’m going to now has arrows on the wall to explain what way to go, but many people don’t stop to look or even notice that there’s a traffic flow–this is very frustrating to those who are regular swimmers at that pool.  How many times have you started a new knitting pattern and charged right in, oblivious to the introductory notes or very helpful diagram–I’m definitely guilty of that!  In both, it is vital to keep your eyes open and look ahead a bit or else someone’s going to get angry!

My arms get sore from both.  Two kilometers will tire me out….and well…yeah…I’m an extreme knitter….injuries happen!

I looked around the pool today and noticed that every age group was represented, and that they were all having fun in the water.  Kids were learning to float, university students were practicing for the swim team, business people were swimming on their lunch break, and older folks were swimming into their retirement and beyond.  It is a sport for all ages, and a community develops of those that swim together.  Swimming is such a great skill to learn when you’re young.  I could say that I’ve seen the same age range of knitters too, but never in the same room all at the same time–that could get dangerous!

Knitting and swimming have been a constant in my life for as long as I can remember.  I learned to knit at the YMCA waiting for my brother’s swim lessons to finish.  I’ve come a long way since then–I’ve taught both knitting and swimming to all sorts of people since then!  It’s funny, no two people are going to have the same exact stroke mechanics….swimming behind an old guy today I noticed that he did a much different whip kick than I’ve ever seen.  He still propelled himself well through the water, but just in a different way.  When I swim front crawl I breathe on my right side. only.  When I knit, I knit in the British sense (working yarn in the right hand) but I don’t “throw” the yarn with my index finger–my right hand leaves the needle to wrap the yarn.  It’s the way I’ve always done it.  I have been corrected…but I comment that I’m not doing it “wrong”, I’m doing it “differently” and we agree to disagree.

It’s hard to change a learned skill.  It’s hard for me to do front crawl breathing on the left side, or to breathe every three strokes.  I CAN do it if I focus on that, and that alone.  It’s not going to be fun.  It’s not going to look good.  It’s not going to be very efficient, and I probably won’t stick to it for very long.  I think about this as I tried to convince my grandmother (who has hurt her yarn-throwing-finger) to knit continental style (working yarn in the left hand).  Now, my grandmother is 95 years old….she has been a knitter for most of those years, and did once know how to knit continental style.  She learned it when she was in Switzerland representing Canada at an international Girl Guiding event when she was 17 years old.  She and the Latvian and Lithuanian girls knit together in that style.  I’ve challenged her to keep knitting, to work around her throwing finger injury and knit continental style.  It will be a good exercise for her brain as well as her hands.  It’s not easy, but that’s learning.

Sometimes it is good to try new things, to challenge yourself a little.  A fellow I know is challenging himself to knit a hat.  This involves learning how to learn how to knit in the round, doing ribbing and decreasing.  My grandmother has officially been challenged to try continental style knitting again after over 70 years, and I’ll keep trying to breathe on the left hand side-a little.  Goal setting is what we do at this time of year.

P.S. for those of you who are as random minded as I seem to be right now…international postage is $1.70–going up after Jan 17th.  I mailed my letter today!

This year I went home for the holidays.  Every year since I moved out I have returned home for the holidays–at most I am a 12 minute walk from home on most days, but for the holidays I pack my stuff and sleep over–this year we were all there, both brothers, my parents and me.  We take comfort in many holiday traditions, some of which have just sort of evolved over the years.  Take our Christmas Eve dinner–It has been lasagna ever since an unfortunate self-timing-oven-broiling-incident about 20 years ago; Mom had the timer set so the lasagna would be done after the 5pm church service.  Ever since I can remember we’ve all go to the midnight service where I now sing in the choir, and my brothers–both grown men–sing descants from the congregation.  From where I sit, I can usually see the giggles from my family, and others around them.  It is tradition to see choir friends returning from university, or from jobs far from here–some come with spouses and kids now!  After late church, giddy as anything, we head home to eat a Yule Log that my mom makes, and listen to a compilation of interesting Christmas music that my brothers put together before we hang up our stockings.

Christmas morning we open gifts slowly-a tradition that we didn’t really like when we were little, but we appreciate now that we are older.  I’m not sure how it is in most families, but I get the traditional gifts of shampoo, pantyhose, life savers, and gingerbeer every year!  A new tradition, that I’m not sure will stand the test of time, is that my brothers and dad grow Christmas mustaches–I bet that they will be gone by New Year!

grandmother's tree

We gathered for dinner at my grandmother’s house.  This is her 96th Christmas, and she had a great time.  Many days are spent in preparation for this feast.  My aunts and my mom and my grandmother all do lots of cooking and organizing.  We gathered on the 23rd for the annual smoothing of the table cloth and setting of the table.

We had a lovely turkey (note the mustache).  My mom and dad have been the turkey preparation team for the past few years.  It was delicious!

My grandmother made the pudding again this year.  Every year there is a concern about how the pudding will turn out.  It was delicious as always…

..and it flamed really well too!

The tradition of doing it all again on boxing day is something else I love.  We are dressed more casually, and can bring a gift to show and tell.  We used to play never ending games of checkers with all of the cousins, but this year everyone was watching football because their proline tickets were still good by 6pm.  It was an exciting time for them.

I knit more of my pathetically late secret santa mitten.  At least I’m knitting the thumb now–Deadline #2 is Jan. 3rd.  Fingers crossed it will be finished by then.What are your Christmas traditions?

For the last few days I’ve been having a rather challenging time explaining how to make a mitten thumb via email.  Here’s some pictures to go along with my words.  Hopefully they will help my friend Shawna, and others working on the same issue.

To make a mitten fit your hand, you need to make it larger on the thumb side.  The regular increases create what is called a thumb gusset.

image source http://www.jessica-tromp.nl

Here’s an interesting photo tutorial: I’ve got a hard time photographing my thumb gussets since I knit in the round, on DPNs.  I don’t know that I’d ever knit a mitten on two needles, but it’s neat to know that it can be done.

Once the gusset is long enough and wide enough, I always get someone to try on the mittens to check, I put the gusset stitches on a scrap of yarn and leave them until the hand of the mitten is done–I finish by knitting the thumb.

So, the gusset stitches are on a scrap of yarn, and you are ready to knit the hand.  My general pattern is to cast on several (note: this will change depending on gauge) stitches to finish off the thumb hole on the upper side.  To cast on these stitches, it’s probably easiest to turn the mitten over (so the wrong side is facing) and cast on, then turn back again.

When it finally is time to knit the thumb, you will use the stitches from the scrap of yarn, the stitches that you just cast on (pick them up).  This would make a nice mitten, but over the years that I’ve been knitting mittens I’ve had a pet peeve about holes appearing where the thumb meets the hand.  To avoid this issue, I pick up an extra stitch from a row back between the gusset stitches and the cast on stitches on either side of the thumb.

Here’s a view of me trying it on for size.  Click to make bigger.

thumb stitch count = gusset stitches + cast on stitches

or

thumb stitch count = gusset stitches + cast on stitches + 2

There are, of course, many ways to knit a thumb.  I’m eager to learn more.  What’s your favourite method?

P.S. Yes, this is mitten number 2 for my secret santa.  It’s been slow going.  Things like sleeping, cleaning, singing and holiday preparations have gotten in my way a bit.  I am here still, enjoying my holidays.  Thanks so much for the comments of concern!

Sorry for the lack of pictures, but there’s nothing interesting to show.  It’s just me and my box of kleenex these days….I haven’t been knitting, or doing much other than going to work, coming home and going to sleep.  My energy is all used up fighting against the nasty cold I picked up this past weekend.

This is no way to get my second secret santa mitten completed by Friday…..I don’t want to declare “deadline impossible” yet though.  I believe in miracles!

I decided to donate my Bella hat that I knit last summer to a silent auction.

I donate something every year, and I’m glad to say that it raised $20 for charity!  This is the most that one of my knitted items has raised in this particular auction.  It will be keeping one lucky lady as warm as a werewolf this winter.  The pattern is free.  Why not make one for yourself this winter?

Between baking and icing batches of cookies, and while watching a few mindless hours of television this weekend I’ve made good progress on my goal.

Today, while my family decorated the tree, I completed the first mitten.  It was lovely to sit and watch as all of our quirky ornaments were carefully unwrapped and discussed while they were put on the tree.  It seems that almost every ornament has a story, and means something to at least one of us.

Some ornaments are less permanent, but much more delicious!  The recipe is a traditional one passed down from my great-aunt.