Ply and Burl

As I send this out into cyberspace, I expect to hear a resounding echo of my own voice, signaling that there is no one left reading my poor, abandoned blog. Sorry, digital friends, for having been gone so long. Who knew grad school would crumple up my life like a ball of tin foil, stomp it into a pancake and then swallow it whole in one big bite?

As you can tell, I’m still learning the grad school time management thing. Until I do, I can only steal a few minutes here and there to myself. Which has meant not much knitting. Also, dangit, I’ve lost the cord to download photos from my camera, so the few pictures I do have are locked in. As for gardening, moving to a new town and renting a house with virtually no yard has meant only a few neglected potted veggies on the front stoop.

From the above perspective, it’s looks a sad state. But I swear, there are fun parts! I’m designing a technical system that tries to help the homeless! I’m doing systems consulting for a creative group at GM! I’m learning to scrape data from the web and elicit interesting things from it using Perl! Yay!

I’m also not sleeping much and reading hundreds of pages of papers a week. The thorn on the rose, I suppose.

One good thing — since the last time I wrote, in the thick of my lazy summer, I’ve lost 25 pounds. So I’m no longer shy about posting pictures of myself in the Sunrise Circle Jacket! It turned out quite beautifully, though I had to felt it a little in the dryer to get it to fit better. Sadly, however, the Airy Cardigan turned out to be a boxy, floppy thing, that was bad even before I shrunk out of it.

Also, in the next post (which I’m going to write RIGHT NOW!) — the pattern for Joel’s Kuryeon hat, which has been waiting in the wings for months.

I’ve missed you all, my blogger friends, so if you get this, my golden record, do send me a sign!

So much progress!

I’ve nearly finished my Sunrise Circle Jacket. All the panels are knitted, all the ends are woven in. Now all I have left is to block and assemble, a prospect I’m terrified of. Even Knitty’s article on seaming has a caveat from the author about how much she dislikes assembling, and how little she actually knows about it. How comforting! All this work, and I could destroy it with a few stray pokes of the needle.

On the upside, I bought some beautiful buttons for it while visiting Dad in Boulder. Behold:

In other news, I finally finished the only item I’ve ever knit for my dad — a pair of house socks to keep his toes warm in the winter. Apparently he has cold toes, a problem I never knew about, considering he’s always cruising around barefoot. I made him the Log Cabin Socks from Handknit Holidays (a most fabulous book, if for nothing but the photography) with some gorgeous Cleckheaton Merino Supreme yarn from Knitting Etc.. It’s the softest, yummiest stuff around. Here’s a pic from the book (my own forthcoming):

It has been months and months that these two have been the only projects on my needles. Which is why, now that I’ve (nearly) finished them both, I am chomping at the bit to get rolling with the other projects that have been a patiently standing by.

First up is a pair of Embossed Leaves Socks from IK Winter 2005 made with Knit Picks Essential in Grass (lovely color!) — this will be my first time working with their yarn and I’m excited to see how it goes.

Next (most likely simultaenously, despite my being a largely monogomous knitter) is the Tilted Jacket from IK Winter 2004. I can’t wait to make this. I’ve been waiting years!

Stay tuned for notes on the progress!

Wahoo! One panel done! Weirdly, the second is almost done too. I had almost finished the left, when, in order to have something to knit without counting, I started the right panel. But the right panel got done first, and now I have to go back to the one that was almost finished way back in the winter and knit the rest. But no mind… I’ve started watching Grey’s Anatomy on the ABC website, so the last few rows are clicking by.

After so many false starts (how many times did I rip out? Three?), I’m really cruising on it now. I’m almost done with the left sleeve and have already started the right (the sleeve part is uncomplicated and thus good for group knitting). It’s very exciting, although I’m really itching to have this done so I can catch one more cool day to wear it on!

Here’s the “sunrise” part up close:

Here’s an abominable shot of the whole thing:

Spent all day at a conference yesterday that turned out to be quite interesting — a rare feat for one of these events. (It was the Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship conference in Syracuse, NY.) Usually I doodle, fidget, space out and look around the room, losing concentration after so many speakers. But this time, knitting in hand, my attention barely wavered. Inspiring listening and I got through the entire first skein of the Sunrise — I’m halfway up the sleeve!

Just a quick update on the Sunrise Circle Jacket — after so many desperate tries and failures to get this started, I finally just did the long tail cast on, and knit in the stitches. No crochet cast on, no sewing, just picking up and knitting in. Easy pleasy. Huge sigh… I can finally get on to the good stuff!

Turns out my cat Iggy is a Yarn Eater. Not a yarn-stalker, nor a yarn-swatter, nor a roll-around-on-the-floor-with-yarner. No. He’s a Yarn Eater.

Three times this morning the Little Sh*t (as he’ll henceforth be called) chewed through my yarn for the Sunrise Circle Jacket. His work is swift — he’ll have already bitten through the strand and left two spitty nubs by the time you notice his gnawing sounds. We’re talking 3 seconds flat.

They train cats with squirt guns, right? Newest addition to my knitting bag: SQUIRT GUN.

Oh, the beauty and the confusion. I cast on and knit half of the left sleeve of my sunrise this weekend and am so thrilled to have started! The Karabella soft tweed is so lovely to look at and to work with! But alas, the sleeve, though it fits the measurements of the pattern, does seem super wide. So I’ve been waffling — frog it, go smaller, risk a too-tight sweater? Or keep it, know the body will fit, and deal with wider sleeves?

I’m between sizes — my favorite looser sweater is 45″ at the chest, but my favorite more form-fitting one is 41″ or 42″. I still can’t really envision how much ease would be best for the Sunrise, so I’m having a hard time choosing whether to size down!

Any thoughts?

Cross posted here.

No, no, it’s not actually a bowl of grapes. It’s my Karabella Soft Tweed (in tweedy purple) ready to go for my Sunrise Circle Jacket! I’m getting ready to start — just trying to finish my Hourglass sweater sleeves first, so I can free up my new Addis!

Cross-posted here.

Join me for the new Sunrise Jacket Knitalong! Can’t wait to get the yarn and get started…