It's still May

Dear Oogy,
I'm finding May to be a much better month than the extended April that finally made an exit.  I finished a scarf:

I'm calling it Organic Sugar Scarf.  The weft is organic cotton and the blue in the warp is yarn made with sugar cane.  I used hemstitching to secure the open warp areas.  I like hemstitching very much.
I also, with the help of Mr. Neuro, set up some shelves so that Brownie could observe his territory from on top of the book shelf in my home office/fiber room.

Unfortunately, he has also taken this gesture as an invitation to fling yarn from the cubbies below.

And I have also made progress on the project for May: knitting backwards!

The stitch marker that you can see just before the twist is where I began knitting backwards.  It is not difficult and is great for doing entrelac.  I'm working on a post that has a heavy dose of neuroscience, with a focus on how our plan to do something new each month this year is giving our prefrontal cortices a work-out.  Go PFC!
Love,
Neuro
PS.  How are we going to choose which UFO to tackle for June?  I have SO MANY.

April's Extension

Dear Oogy,
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that April should have at least 45 days, not the usual 30.  April is the busiest month in our academic year, with year-long projects coming to fruition and students in a frenzy to both finish their degrees and get jobs.  Someone at work last week was joking that April seems to have been extended this year, and they didn't even know about how our Thing a Month plan is evolving into a Thing a Month and a Half.  While I am excited to tackle May's backward knitting in entrelac, it might be another few weeks before I have the energy to do it!

I guess another way to view our scheme is to say that we will BEGIN a new thing each month, with the idea that if it's fun, we'll keep doing it all year.  This is the approach I am taking to textured weaving.  I finished the place mats:

I liked the hemstitching so much that I used it again in a scarf.  When I used it in the place mats I did not understand how the hemstitching would secure the border--I now know that it can take the place of tying off the ends, but it is necessary to leave enough fringe so that the whole thing doesn't unravel.  Another texture element in the scarf is the intermittent placement of unwoven warp.  I thought there was some chance that the weaving was tight enough that the warp threads would remain open, but as soon as it came off the loom the weft crept in.

So, I did a little after-loom hemstitching, and now it looks great!

I suppose now I should expand my repertoire beyond the hemstitch...
Love,
Neuro

April is for Weaving

Oogy and I are continuing the Thing a Month plan, and this month our goal is to expand our weaving skills beyond the basic plain weave.  We are novice weavers.  I had to look up what basic, no-frills weaving was called--imagine it being called "plain weave"!  There are many new vocab words to learn.

We are armed with Jane Patrick's The Weaver's Idea Book, which is all about ways to use the rigid heddle loom to make a whole range of woven fabrics.  It's a great book.  Right now I'm making some place mats with a hemstitched border.  I'm making 4 mats on the same warp, leaving about 6 inches of unwoven warp between them.

The warp is 3 colors of long-neglected stash yarn in cotton or cotton blend (no idea what the black yarn is or where it came from, but it feels like cotton).  The weft is cotton that I used for many attempts at a summer sweater.  It seems to have found its true destiny here.

Intelligent Knitting

Dear Oogy,

As I listened recently to a colleague lecture about intelligence I found an idea that relates very well to this month's knitting project: fluid and crystallized intelligence.  Psychologists tend to view intelligence as having multiple forms.  Fluid intelligence depends on the ability to use new information and develop new skills, and to view information with a unique perspective.  Crystallized intelligence depends on the ability to store and retrieve information.  So there's how much you know and how well you use it!

I believe that learning to make socks two-at-a-time is helping us build our fluid intelligence.  Certainly we could say that the standard approach to making socks, one-at-a-time and from the cuff, is part of our crystallized intelligence, and with perhaps a bit more practice we can add these other techniques.    

I finished my toe-up, simultaneous socks.  Instead of making them thigh-highs, I decided to make a matching set of mitts.  I found Judy Becker's magic cast-on to work very well (thanks for the link!) for the socks, but I encountered the same problem you had casting on when I began the mitts.  Oh, what a tangled mess I made.  Plus, it made me very mad.  Knitting hasn't made me so mad in a long time.  So, I did what you did: began with dpns and after a few rows transfered it onto the circulars. 

Maybe I'll try to exercise my limited amount of fluid intelligence and cast-on some cuff-first socks for the next project...

Love,

Neuro

Simultaneous sock progress

Progress, as promised!

No sign of an "N" in the sock, but the pseudo-striped pattern is cool.

Later the same day: the heels are turned and the gusset has begun.

March On

Dear Oogy,
Your magic loop socks are fabulous!  I also am missing my DPNs, but our goal this year was to break away from the routine, so I'll keep the magic loop thing going for another pair.  I have to say that my Thing-a-Month effort for February was not stellar, so I am pleased to welcome March and hope to make up for it.  I am making significant progress on the Simultaneous Socks from one of the sock blanks I dyed.  You think that decorating yours with an O was bizarre--I've decorated mine with an N.  It appears backwards half the time, but this will not matter because it won't translate into an "N" on the sock (I'm fairly sure).

How the sock appears so far...

Sock blank before knitting

I have an excuse for my abysmal showing in February.  It seems that most of my family members were born in February and early March, and this year I got it in my head that I was making gifts for everyone.

Mitts for SIL Diane (leftover Silver Scrumptious!)

Mitts for stepmom (they got discarded after I washed them and they grew 2 sizes that day)

Even better mitts for stepmom.  You may recognize the yarn, which you spun and we dyed at your MIL's.

Mitts for niece K-T.  

Hat for nephew Steven.  Mr. Neuro suggested I make him herringbone something.

Hat for brother Rob (and another exactly like it for brother Ron)

And then there is a colleague who has just had his first baby, so booties were in order.

Faux cable booties for Logan

I promise to give regular updates on the March progress!

Love,

Neuro

Progress in the toe-up department

Dear Oogy,
I am happy to report that my toe-up training is going well.  I completed a trial toe and made a heel going the wrong toe-first direction.  With great confidence I have decided to go for a real sock, using the Happy Choices yarn you sent last month.

I am also using the magic loop method, in a show of solidarity with your own efforts.  I have not ever knit directly from a sock blank, so that is also a new experience.  

The practice sock is on the left.  

Just think of all the new synaptic connections we are making this month!

Love,

Neuro

Collaborative Knitting AND blogging

Dear Oogy,

I’m so glad that you came up with the “Thing-a-Month” concept for our 2013 knitting theme.  The BFF Cowl project for January was a great success!  I have worn my linked cowl most days since it was completed.  It’s cold out there!

Here they are together.  Mine is in Arrow Pattern (written by Hildegard Elsner and found in A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker) in Silver Fiberspates Scruptious Aran; yours in the very original Our Favorite Things design, in Slate. 

You know how some projects turn out great, but while you’re making them you have serious doubts?  I did not experience that while I made the lacey link for our cowls.  It took me very little time to decide what pattern to use, and then I estimated how many stitches would give me 6 inches across and went for it.  It was exactly 6 inches wide and I was able to fit a complete number of pattern repeats to make it 26 inches long.  No project has ever gone more smoothly.  AND, I was not dreading the 2^nd link.  In fact, it gave me the opportunity to use a new skill—smooth left-leaning decreases that I learned from Annie Modesitt. 

While all of that was great, what made the project most exciting was anticipating what you would send.  You always make the most interesting and awesome projects (for example, my most prized socks are fancy ones you’ve made), so I had high expectations.  I did not, however, expect to see actual chemistry, with beads and bobbles depicted on your contribution to the cowls.  It’s extraordinary and I love it! 

Here's a close-up of yours:

It’s February already!  I am working on my first toe-up sock.  It’s going well, but I’m worried about the heel…

Thank you for being my knitting guru!

Love,

Neuro

Fancy Mitts

Fueled by the need for instant gratification and faced with a burgeoning stash, I have been highly motivated lately to make quick projects that allow me to clear away some of this yarn.  It helps that there are MANY birthdays in my family during the winter.  One sister with a January birthday was recently the happy recipient of these:

  She called them fancy mitts, so that's their name.  The glass beads are strung on before knitting.  The pattern is very simple--the beads do the shaping along the cuff.  The bead pattern is inspired by Beads of Earth scarf by Jane Davis.

Some Progress

The new year brings a new knitting scheme for Oogy and myself.  Each month this year we will challenge each other/ourselves to learn a new skill, or tackle a project we've long wanted to do.  We've called this scheme Thing-a-Month. (see Oogy's post, too).

The project for January is the BFF Cowl from the Deep Fall issue of Knitty.  Oogy is making 2 links in  dark grey, while I am making 2 in light grey.  After considering a number of yarn options, we settled on the yarn that the pattern calls for--Scrumptious Aran by Fiberspates.  It is scrumptious, indeed.  We decided to choose our own pattern and to keep it secret until the pieces are sent, so I'm only showing a tiny bit of what I'm working on.  We are aiming for pieces that measure 6 inches wide and 26 inches long.  As you can see, my first piece has worked out nicely.  A great way to begin the year!

The blogs I like

I recently added a few favorite blogs and would like to take this opportunity to explain the whole list.

Oogyknitter.  Oogy is a dear friend who I met in college.  We actually lived a few doors from each other on the same floor in the same dorm during our junior year, but we weren’t really friends then.  I often marvel at the missed opportunity to share what was then my new obsession with knitting.  Oogy could often be seen knitting in class or at meetings, though she was not featured at all in a recent article in our alumnae magazine about the prominent role of knitting at Mount Holyoke.   They missed a big part of knitting history at MHC, in my view!  I got to know Oogy very well when we spent time together in the trenches of honors thesis research as seniors, and we’ve stayed good friends since then.  Over the years she has become my knitting/dyeing/spinning/weaving guru.  Come to think of it, she is my blog guru also!

Knitting New England.  Here’s the other blog written by a knitter I know personally.  SMW is a writer and musician (and knitter, of course) who lives nearby.  Our paths crossed several times in the past few years and we’ve become good friends.  Her blog chronicles knitting-related events and places in this corner of the country.  We’ve developed a favorite pastime of visiting yarn stores together. 

Kate Davies Designs.  I have a long-standing fascination with Fair Isle knitting, so I found this blog of great interest.  It was even more interesting to discover that Davies also writes about her experience recovering from a stroke.  Davies offers a great example of how knitting can be therapeutic, and in her case, may have contributed to or has served as a gauge for her continuing recovery.  Plus, she takes the most spectacular pictures of Scotland and her dog Bruce.

The Yarn Harlot.  Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s blog is perhaps the most popular knitting blog.  She sometimes writes and does talks about knitting and the brain, and her chronicles of life as a knitter/writer are hilarious.  I highly recommend her books. She posts 3-4 times a week, so there’s always something new and entertaining to read. 

The Purl Bee.  This blog is associated with Purl Soho, a shop in Manhattan that is owned by fellow MHC alum Joelle Hoverson.  Another missed opportunity: we were at MHC together, though I don’t believe I ever met Joelle.  Her shop is on our list to visit soon.

The Panopticon.  I’m not sure how I found this blog, but it has quickly become a favorite.   Franklin Habit is very entertaining, in a somewhat cynical and sometimes irreverent manner. I find it refreshing to read about knitting from the male perspective.

Mason-Dixon Knitting.  I’ve just started reading this blog recently.  It is another very popular blog for knitters, with a unique format in which Kay, from Manhattan, writes to Ann, who lives in Nashville.  Each post is in the form of a letter from one to the other.     

I’m open to suggestions for additional worthy blogs.  I’m especially interested in ones that also relate to science.  

Can’t have a post without pictures, so here is one:

I have just sent this to a grad school buddy.  Fourteen years ago I made her a hat and she made me a pottery vessel that now holds my spare change.  She emailed me 8 months ago, requesting a new hat. 

You’ll likely recognize a modified version of Debbie Stoller’s Cabled Chapeau.  This one is made with yarn I found while SMW and I were visiting Rhode Island yarn stores. It's 100% alpaca, made from the fleece of Penny, who lives at Shadow Pines Farm in Exeter, RI.

 

Welcome Winter

Are you ready to say goodbye to 2012?  I'm feeling ready.

I finished knitting a few presents in plenty of time for the holiday, so I decided to begin next year's projects, while the holiday mood remains and there is still grading to avoid.  I found a pattern for felted Christmas Trees at the Purl Bee and am putting the finishing touches on the first one.

I'm needle felting the snow, using alpaca fiber from Aja that got a bit felted in the cleaning process.  

Another project is to make accessories with this beautiful cashmere blend yarn:

At one point this yarn had been transformed into this sweater,

but I really hated it, so it got ripped and now, a year later, it's being re-purposed.  The cowl is another pattern from The Purl Bee, and the hats are my own design.  I have enough yarn for about 15 projects like these.

We're getting colder

SMW recently wrote a list of charitable organizations that are accepting a variety of donations in the coming months.  The St. Mungo Woolly Hat project seemed most appealing to me.  Here is my orange hat:

This is made with Jojoland “Tonic” in color #AW128, known to me as Nuclear Orange.  It’s 85% acrylic, 15% wool and has a decidedly synthetic feel to it.  Although it’s en route to serve its purpose for Woolly Hat Day, I am in no hurry to use what remains of this skein. 

Making the hat sent me in the completely opposite direction, back to a sweater I started a year (2 years?) ago.  It’s made with very rustic natural-color wool from Beaver Brook Farm.  I can’t take this project anywhere because it has an intense oily smell that I huff joyously every time I pick it up.  I made the sleeves long ago; now I’m on the second attempt at the body.  It’s plain stockinette until I reach the neck—excellent stinky, mindless knitting.