There's a great future in plastics.

I am alive, and still knitting, although that has slowed significantly with the events of the last few weeks. Although I finished the Jaywalkers on the flight west, little further knitting was accomplished on the trip (I made the toe of a toe-up sock, and even that didn't turn out so well). Starting a new project proved to require more thought than one afflicted with car-sickness can adequately give.

Pictures to follow -- Jaywalkers, the start of Kiri, and the near-completeness of the Urban Aran, at least. There's been one new yarn purchase, as well. Ooh ooh! And I've been tagged by Amanda, so I've got a good excuse to blog in the next day or so.

For now, I leave you with the FO that took me two years and a lot of sleepless nights. Woot!

Most recent podcast: This American Life.
Currently listening to: Regina Spektor, Fidelity.
What I should be doing: Returning three-weeks worth of email.

Change is the only constant

I have just turned in the last final exam of my graduate career. It's strangely... mellow. A sort of lovely, mellow joy, with just the slightest touch of melancholy. Last Friday I turned in my Master's Project, the culminating experience of my graduate experience. All that's left between me and graduation is Western Field Trip, a week-long class trip to Washington State -- not a particularly stressful class. I celebrated with a very indulgent weekend that involved little time at the computer, dinner parties, quite a bit of cheese-eating, wine-drinking, BBC-miniseries-watching (six wonderful hours of it), and of course, knitting.

At a celebratory barbecue, a rare fellow knitter and I met up to discuss the Urban Aran, and picking up stitches for the collar. My poor Urban Aran! It's been so lonely, but now I'm ready to go at that collar and seam it up. Exciting!

This turning point in my semester happily coincides with another exciting time. It's time to pick a new project! With the Jaywalkers nearly complete, I'm looking for another project to bring on WFT for the round-trip flight and a fair amount of time in vans. So -- socks, or shawl? Socks may be more mindless, and better for travel, but I'm itching to do lace...

The contenders

Socks:
Monkey
Hedera
Toe-up of my own design

Shawls:
Kiri (pattern here, better pictures here)

Yarns:
I'm falling more and more in love with this yarn I bought at the Carrboro Farmer's Market from Three Waters Farm. A 50/50 merino tencel blend, the shiny tencel lends the purple and green colorway an iridescent sheen. I knit up small gauge swatch yesterday and the short color repeats look just lovely. I bought the skein for socks, but I'm thinking about picking up another and making a shawl.

Also up for socks, Emerald from RubySapphire Yarns, and Marrakesh or Brick House from Fearless Fibers.

A new skein showed up (with excellent timing) on Thursday, and spent the night reposing next to my computer at school while I pulled a nearly-all-nighter. Isn't it lovely? It's Laughing Rat Studio's silk/wool laceweight in the twilight colorway. I've already begun to knit this up into the Kiri shawl, my first real lace-with-laceweight project.

Most recent podcast: Wow, I can't even remember.
Currently listening to: Cloud Cult, The Meaning of 8
What I should be doing: Returning three weeks of email.

Ennui and new yarn

For about the next month or so, I probably won't be blogging that much (I say this now -- we'll see). I'm finishing up my final year of graduate school toward my Master's degree, which means that my time is supposed to will be taken up by finishing, presenting, and writing up my master's project. This process will, I hope, be minimally painful. What it will be, for sure though, is time consuming, leaving little time to knit and/or blog.

On top of that, I've hit a few knitting walls this past week, and my knitting-mojo is suffering for it. The Urban Aran awaits attention somewhat impatiently. I cannot, for the life of me, pick up the required number of stitches along the neckline. I'm hoping that this is simply a product of me not knowing how to pick up stitches correctly (see below), and not the sloppy decreasing job. To determine this, I will have to check in with my LYS. However, I did not buy this yarn from said LYS, which tries to reserve its help for its own yarns (understandably so), and so I will have to beg and plead and probably offer money (totally worth it). However -- this whole grad school thing makes scheduling all of that difficult.

I discovered my lack-of-picking-up-stitches prowess when I dove into The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques with five Urban Aran pieces spread across my lap. Somewhere I had picked up an approach that looked nothing like the example in the book. While the new technique made my attempts on the collar more attractive (if not accurate), it created a little wrinkle in my brain. If I had been picking up stitches incorrectly all this time...then the picking up of stitches that I have done on the capecho are... incorrect. And while picking up incorrectly on a sock doesn't really matter -- you still get a fitting sock -- picking up incorrectly on the capecho may have disasterous results. So disasterous, in fact, that after a brief look at the six pentagons I've finished, and a quick realization that to fix this I would have to frog five -- I put the pieces down. I folded them up. And I have not looked at them since. (Brenda Dayne's most recent blog post on why you should not try to alter a Norah Gaughan pattern in any way is not helping.)

The Jaywalker, in its third incarnation, is coming along. And although the yarn is wonderful, the pooling is...kind of hideous. I love them nonetheless, but -- you know how it goes. Frustrating.

All of this makes me itch for a new project. Which I don't really have time to do just at the moment. Hence, my knitting-mojo frustrations.

This, of course, did not stop me from picking up a skein of 50/50 merino/tencel fingering weight yarn from Mary Ann Pagano of Three Waters Farm, a local fiber artist. She sells her hand-painted yarns at the Carrboro Farmer's Market, where I've admired them for over a year. I finally gave in today (her friendliness and my project frustration were too much to fight) and picked this up. The colors are just -- iridescent. Purples, greens, some blue... almost too good for the socks I'm planning. I think I'll play with some swatches and see what it wants to be.


I'll leave you with this: Baby yarn! The picture is poor -- I only got one in on a recent fishing trip to a nearby farm's pond. I of course was more interested in the week-and-a-half-old lambs.

Most recent podcast: Cast-On, with Brenda Dayne.
(The podcast responsible for this madness by introducing me to online knitting culture.)
Currently listening to: Cider in Battle Ground playlist: No Lonesome Tune, Townes Van Zandt.
What I should be am doing: Waiting for pyramids to build in ArcGIS. Grr.

Fear of abandonment

I have consciously ignored the nearly completed Urban Aran for an entire day. Its finished, blocked pieces are arranged artfully on my dining room table, lonely and crying for attention, for the few days it will take me to seam it all together -- "you're so close!" -- but I avert my eyes on my way to and from the kitchen. (I also avoid the almost certain knowledge that the sleeves are way. too. long.)

On Monday, with my usual fearless passion, I dove in to the seaming process. I joined the shoulders satisfactorily, if not perfectly, and began the process of picking up stitches for the collar. I picked up stitches. Too few. I continued on, thinking it wouldn't matter. I realized this was a bad idea, and began again. Again, too few. I went back and forth, until, utterly frustrated and having visions of five green sweater pieces following me for the rest of my life.

So I put it down. I've realized that my usual, gung-ho, jump-right-in-and-I'll-figure-it-out-as-I-go attitude was not going to work here. So I'll read my Nancie M. Wiseman finishing book (again, it's not at Powell's), plan ahead, go slow, and figure it out. It'll just take me... a little longer.

In other news, be sure to read the best review of 300 that I've seen. The blog is excellent as well (if you haven't already seen it for yourself) -- one I check in on daily.

Most recent podcast: NPR's Sunday Puzzle with Will Shortz.
Currently listening to: Lonesome in Caroline, Chatham County Line.
What I should be doing: Forest Vegetation Sampling lab.

Spring Break updates

Have I really not posted for nine days? Spring break, a trip to Colorado, the week before the next draft of my Master's Project is due... it's just flown by. I'm only allowing myself to post now because I'm waiting for a model to run in ArcGIS 9.2.

Well, enough of that. Some updates:

After spending entirely too much time thinking about it, I decided to bring the capecho and the jaywalkers, both on bamboo needles, so as to avoid the scrutiny of any over-zealous security officers (excellent point, emano). I've learned not to bring anything too precious, as I once lost five Brittany dpn's (mid-hat!) to just such a circumstance. The capecho was new, exciting, and still small. It was a great project for the plane and a little podcast-listening, where I could give it my full attention. The jaywalkers had been languishing a bit, and I knew I'd need something a little more mindless for socializing.

Capecho progress! I've added a third pentagon since this picture was taken, but the light in Colorado was so much better that I've used an old shot. The seams are a bit obvious; any suggestions? I used the mattress stitch that Auntie Amanda recommended (thanks much!). It was super simple, but it's standing out a bit on the capecho. Any ideas?

Now that I'm back in the southeast, I've put all else down for the Urban Aran cardigan that still has me so excited. I've about 5 more rows to go before I finish the second front panel and then...then it's on to putting it all together. The seaming of the capecho pentagon's has given me a little confidence boost, and I'm excited about actually, possibly finishing!

Colorado was lovely -- I was just west of Denver, at my boyfriend's boyhood home in the mountains (I grew up in New Jersey. Apparently, they're called "foothills," but they're mountains to me). I got to go cross-country skiing (my first time ever on skis), and try out the new hot tub (I highly approve).

Something new has caught my eye, although I'll have to put it off until maybe the end of summer. It's both me, and not me, at the same time. I have nothing else like it, but I completely see myself wearing it over a fitted white long-sleeved tee, and jeans. It's SweaterBabe's Romantic Cable and Lace Vest.

Whew. I'll leave you with some Colorado eye candy.

Most recent podcast: KEXP's Song of the Day.

Currently listening to: Bitter Tea, The Fiery Furnaces.
What I should be doing: Writing the second draft of my MP.

Urban Aran update -- it grows!

Just an update on the Urban Aran progress, as I'm particularly proud of both the unfinished product (all of those cables make me beam) and my diligence. This sweater continues to be what I want to work on when I'm knitting -- so much so that recent class trips have been frustrating because the sweater is a little too big to travel conveniently. I think this diligence is due, in part, to how quickly the sweater is knitting up, given the bulky yarn. It's just fast enough to see definite progress each time I pick up the needles, which does wonders for the ego.

In preparation for the coming end (although I do still have to figure out how to knit the front in two pieces, which will probably take considerably longer), I bought Nancie M. Wiseman's The Knitter's Guide to Finishing Techniques*. As the end nears, the more I fear this "finishing" I hear so much of.

*Normally, I'd link this at Powells, but their page had significantly less information on this book. -- but you should go check them out anyway.

Most recent podcast: NPR's All Songs Considered.
Currently listening to: The Arcade Fire, live at Judson Memorial Church.
What I should be doing: Writing the first draft of my master's project, due in 48 hours.

A poor excuse for an introduction, but a good excuse for procrastination.

A placeholder, of sorts, until I can justify taking the time to write the most brilliant blog introduction. Ever. Expect that to come in, oh, May.

This is the nearly-finished back of Paton's Urban Aran sweater, my first seamed sweater project. I will be attempting to make into a cardigan, a la Brooklyn Tweed, Streets and YOs, and MellowTrouble, to name a few of my favorite interpretations. I'm on the first sleeve, so this one might actually get done before it warms up.

Currently listening to: The Crane Wife, The Decemberists.
Most recent podcast: Lime and Violet.
What I should be doing: Filling out my intention to graduate form, due in 3.5 hours.