I decided that I don't like having to dash around in a hurry to figure out what new project to start on my way to somewhere that I meant to bring my knitting, so I've started three projects:

• The Very Portable Project, a red sock (well, two red socks), with the same mesh pattern as the Blue Stockings for desireearmfeldt
• The Somewhat Portable Project, a twisted-stripes scarf for shumashi (it involves six balls of yarn, so it's a larger tote bag, but it's mindless enough to knit during a run or while watching TV elsewhere).
• The Not Portable Project, the Swan Lake shawl.

It's the last one that I'm ambivalent about. I really love the pattern, which has one side geometric and one side feathery-wing (though that part really sounds more like the Six Swan Princes story, with the prince who has one swan wing and one arm). And I've had this fine laceweight/cobweb yarn for years, since I saw it at Woolcott after I had had such trouble finding laceweight yarn for the Rose of England tablecloths (Patternworks assured me that the Cotton Fine replacement was just as good as Sea Island Cotton, but in retrospect, I think they were confused.) Who knew that in this brave new future, the Internet would supply such an amazing variety of yarn?

Unfortunately, I am a little suspicious that it may be too cobwebby. Here's my first draft (black background), on size 4 needles, and my second draft (red background), on size 3. There are beads along the edge, but they're tough to see. The lace on the size 4s is really too loose; with the size 3s, you can see the pattern (mostly), but I worry that it's still too open. Plus, the yarn is very slippery, so it will be very prone to snagging and pulling out a big loop. I've always wanted to make something in cobweb lace - it'd be nearly weightless, and one could do the trick of pulling the whole thing through a ring. But "I've always thought it would be cool to make one of these" is not the same thing as "this would be a good final result."

(Plus, my theory was that of my three lace projects shawls, this would be the one for desireearmfeldt; tallou got the Hanami stole, and I wore the Pacific Islands to rifmeister's prom party. (Both of those are "laceweight" rather than "cobweb", as was the recent Lyra for twe and you can see that even blocked out, the non-hole parts of the fabric is a little more filled in.) Where was I going with this thought? Oh, right, I also suspect that Andrea may appreciate "adds a layer of warmth" more than "weightless gossamer.")

Dither dither.

Tags: knit
Current Mood: confused

This one squeaked in just under deadline - I had to rip back and reknit a little bit on Friday night when it turned out I was short on yarn (it should really be about half an inch longer in the body), I added the button loops and buttons Saturday morning, blocked it Saturday during the day, put it on the heater Saturday night to convince it to stop being damp, and wrapped it Sunday morning with an hour to spare.

Tags: knit

Angelina's is getting weird.

mjperson:"I'd like to order some subs for takeout. [...] A regular hamburger sub, with onions and ketchup."
"Would you like the hamburger raw or cooked?"
"...Cooked, please."

Tags: mikestory

Okay, I kind of fell down on this again.

• Day 7: in which our heroes discuss religion
• Day 8: in which our heroes stay in a garden full of cats

Lo, I have finished the lace Lyra tablecloth for twe! Like all lace, it's interesting and a little suggestive of laciness while being knit, but really looks like nothing so much as a complicated floppy bag. Once blocked out, though, it's magical.

The most interesting thing about the pattern (to me) is how it gets made square. There's the eight flowers surrounded by mesh, which is all 8-fold symmetric, and then there's the bits outside that. Those are made up of triangular-ish sections (small mesh bordered by leaves), and the corners have two repeats of those triangles while the middle sections just have one repeat. It's obvious once you look, and it makes it clear how much the difference between a curve and a straight line in knitting is due to what's next to the stitches in question.

Tags: knit

justom had a "running for president" party. He had campaign posters saying things like "Giordano for President: A Stichelton in Every Pot" and "Giordano for President: Pants you can believe in". I brought picket signs against him, which ilhander and shumashi helped wave for a bit. It's hard to picket inside a party, though.

I am very pleased with how the Tom/Hitler photomorph came out. Anyone else feeling like being morphed into the celebrity of their choice? Whee!

Alas, the Omen is too obscure a cultural reference, unfortunately.



I had Hitler, Antichrist, and Teabags covered; harrock went with another variety of political crazy, Truther, in his tinfoil hat. Everyone said he made a very good crazy, though on our way there, someone looked amused and asked what the sign said (it's an Oath reference), so I guess he wasn't completely convincing.

Current Mood: amused

• Day 5: in which our heroes do not spend their life savings on a flying carpet
• Day 6: in which our heroes briefly split the party

(There has been a brief pause while I pestered Jerry into captioning the hike, but we should be back on target again now.)

Today was the Halloween Dragon run, which was a fun lark (especially the part where half the party was convinced to disguise themselves as monster pirates to steal the elephants from the other half). We plundered heavily from Spirited Away and several other Miyazaki.

However, when I was getting dressed in the morning, I considered putting on my Oath shirt instead of my Dragon shirt, to be in costume as an Oath GM, but then decided it would be silly if I did that and Mike didn't, so switched to the Dragon shirt. Of course, Mike was wearing his Oath shirt, to be in costume. I've been kicking myself all day. :)

However, that probably means that we have the magic syncing shticks back on line, which is good.

Current Mood: embarrassed

• Day 3: In which our heroes get their first boat trip
• Day 4: In which our heroes become fans of Ataturk

(Since there was some confusion before - black is Jerry, purple is me, captions are me)

Two pairs of socks done. The first is one of my traditional "stock up on socks for Christmas presents" projects, called Vilai, from the new Cookie A sock book.

The second is a Tsock Tsarina pattern called "Blue Stockings" (for Uppity Knitters Who Represent). The "Half Veil Stitch" involves a lot of twisting - each stitch has a 360 twist in it (like knitting into the back loop but twice as much) . The Tsarina has a new and improved method of doing the stitch, which involves twirling the needles around each other to put the twist on, but I actually found that that made my fingers tired, while I got very fast at the classic "very awkward" Barbara Walker method. I never got completely even, but then, neither did the Tsarina, so I'm probably good.



This is an amazing old lace pattern called Lyra by Herbert Niebling. For a while, the German magazine that had the pattern would sell for ridiculous amounts on eBay, but it's finally been reprinted. This is twe's yarn, since I'm happy enough to knit lace and give it away, and she's happy enough to let someone turn her cool yarn into something pretty, so it works out. I've seen other people who have "how much in progress" pictures on their blogs in the sidebar, which look neat - but I don't want to keep uploading incremental changes to Ravelry, so I don't really know what to do with it. Anyway, this is as far as I am so far. :)

Tags: knit