Now Norma Knits

326. A Hat For Jean and More Knitting Archeology

My first hat for Jean's hat drive for the homeless is done.  Simple is really where it's at sometimes, ya know? I love this thing.

I totally have a thing for ribs.  And then there is the brown and gray combo.  Crazy-plain and simple, but just perfect.

One of the reasons charity knitting appeals to me is it scratches my Yankee frugality itch.  I get to use up scrap stash yarns and make something useful and warm.  So in this case, I had some leftover sable brown Lamb's Pride Bulky.  I knitted 'til I ran out, and then I joined in some gray to finish the hat.  A totally stylin' stash buster!

Another reason is I get to practice techniques with not so much need for perfection.  In this case, I got to prove for myself that the knitting trick I read about in a couple places really works -- the one for knitting stripes in rib without getting those weird join lines with the purl bumps sticking out like sore thumbs.  The trick is, simply KNIT all the stitches of the first row of a join of color stripe (do not knit 2, purl 2 -- just knit the whole thing).  Magically, it does not adversely affect the rib -- it still continues on in the rib, and yet makes the stripes look so much neater and prettier. Hot damn. Simple and awesome. 

This hat is knit at a tighter-than-called-for gauge for extra wind protection and warmth.  The Lamb's Pride is very warm anyway, with its mohair content (Boy, does that mohair ever increase the warmth factor), but given the way my skin has felt in the wind and cold in our neck of the woods lately, it's all I could think of was to make this thing denser and more windproof.

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While I was hunting down the charity yarns in my mess stash, I unearthed another of my knitting antiquities.

This will wake you up if you haven't yet had your coffee:

 

JUICY!  This is one of the first socks I ever knit.  It's a feather and fan pattern, in Koigu sock yarn in an incredibly potent tangerine color that was sent to me eons ago by Julie. I love it, but at the time I finished it, it was... well, it was a SOCK.  I have not been so much the sock knitter, and I am sure I nearly expired getting through this thing. 

I have really quite a full sock drawer, though.  I have knitted a few pairs myself and I've been the lucky recipient of luscious handknit socks from (in inadvertent -- or was it? -- alphabetical order:  My brain is so organized, apparently, the list came out of my head alphabetically. I noticed that was the case, and left it for our collective amusement.) Cari, Cassie, Cookie, Debi and Stephanie .... and I sure hope I haven't forgotten anybody.  Organized but forgetful, that's me.  Maybe tomorrow I'll pull them all out and show you my little array of socks. I am rich in the sock love from others (and a few from myself), and each pair is my favorite.

But I digress. 

The thing is, I have run across this tangerine orphan a few times over the years, but I had no idea where the remaining yarn was to make the second. Now I have found the lost-but-not-really-forgotten ball of yarn. This is not to imply I have the desire to make the second sock, but then again, that color sure does wake up my brain and make me happy, so you never know.

321. Surgical Rotation

Phew, it was a busy Sunday on the surgical ward.  First we had a very important plastic surgery.  (Paging Dr. Sloan)

David's birthday socks turned out to be a bit too short.  So on Sunday I ripped back the toes to before the decreases, squeaked another inch out of the yarn I had left, and decreased and closed them back up again.  Good as Better than new, but now there is no yarn left for future darning.

You know what they say about guys with big feet, don't ya?

That's right.  Big socks. 

That surgery took an unexpectedly long time -- most of the day -- because let's just say there can apparently be such a thing as being too good at hiding yarn ends.  Who knew?  But there was still time left, before going to the gym, for a quick suturing of the ripped stitches of the green Peace Fleece sweater that is going to be donated to the clothing drive. 

Now I can get back to the sweater in progress, and pretty soon I need to get going on the white Dimorphous mittens I have planned.  My mittens were supremely popular at the signing the other day!  Everybody wanted them, and the shop is talking about putting up the pattern in a kit.  Awesome!

Man, has this become a knitting blog or what?!

310. The Four-Minute Sock

The backstory:  When our intrepid blogger first bought this yarn and made her own pair of socks from it, knitting a pair of socks was a major undertaking. They were the 2nd pair of socks she had ever knit, and the first for herself.  She managed to get the first one done for her spouse after that, but was probably overwhelmed with the task and never finished.  At that time some deposition craziness probably took over, or something. 

Now she's rather laughing at herself.  This is a super-heavy worsted weight yarn. (It's so heavy, it can almost count it as her weight-lifting for the week.)

A 40-stitch sock on US 7 needles. A 40-stitch sock! ha! She laughs at the puny 40 stitchedness of it! Nowadays, with a few extra years' training and experience under her belt, she's thinking she should be able to get these done in about three and a half minutes. 

We catch up with her already under way on the race track.

Here she is at 1 minute 20 seconds and hardly breaking a sweat.  Yes indeed, she's about a third of the way through!  She pauses long enough to tell us that those stripes were a bit tricky.  They required a lot of cutting of yarn and counting of rows, and put her a bit behind on the clock, but she's now cruising along and making up time.  However, coming up soon is the heel flap, the turning of the heel, and the gusset.  That might also put her behind the pack, with all that back-and-forthing of the heel flap.  Perhaps she was a bit hasty in making her time estimate. 

Indeed.  It's been 2 minutes 48 seconds, and she did not count on getting tendinitis in her forearms and elbows, or have an extra two classes to cover at work, not to mention coming down with an unexpected headache.

We come upon Béla Knitrolyi, world-famous knit coach, who is on the sidelines yelling at her, "You can do it!  You can do it! You can knit that sock with a broken wrist!  With a full cast on your elbow! Forget about those med school lectures and the stenoing you need to do! Forget about the pain in your elbows! You can do it! Knit it! Knit it!"

Despite his urgings, she falls slightly more behind the leaders of the pack. To make matters worse, she makes the tactical error of weaving in the ends of the stripes before she hits this steep heel/gusset hill. Still, it's only been three minutes, give or take. Anyone can hold on for another minute! We urge her:  Stop thinking about that Marta sweater that is at the finish line waiting for you to finish!  Stop it!  Keep on going on the sock.  Only another minute or so left to go. Push it!  Push!  You can do it!

Yes!  At 3 minutes 20 seconds (behind her goal, but still making respectable time), she has turned the heel and finished the gusset. 

We're on the home stretch.  The finish line is in sight. 

Lookie here, almost finished! 

In a last-few-seconds surprise move that stunned everyone, especially the knitter, she remembered how to do the Kitchener stitch to graft the toe without having to resort to pulling out the video for instructions.  She darted across the finish line a little behind her hoped-for time, but she scored a personal best: The four-minute sock!

BOGUS, all of it. Well, not all of it. She did knit these lickety-split this week, but it took more than four minutes. It really took a few hours -- OK, maybe six, more or less -- and the task of knitting this sock was oh-so-much-less daunting than it used to be.  Mission accomplished, and a very satisfying, and truly spectacular (if she does say so), finished pair of socks. And when she says they are heavy, she's not kidding.  The postal scale reveals 9 ounces for this pair of socks.  Beefy!

Ravelryized here.

 

 

308. Archeological and Mathematical Adventures in Knitting

All right, true confessions:  I had to do some tidying up in the office so that the poor cable guy would emerge alive (and it's working -- at least the desktop computer is -- I have to figure out the wireless later, when I have the time). This is a big house and we do not have an unlimited budget, so the cleaning help I am very lucky to have does not get into my office or my fiber room. I guess you know what that means for those two rooms, right?

CHAOS.

I unearthed a few treasures during that exercise.  Here is one of them:

Lord only knows how many years ago I started this pair of super-hefty house socks for David (three, it turns out -- thank goodness for the blog as a historical resource).  It was long enough ago that I had forgotten about them, but had not forgotten about the lovely, lovely, SUPERLICIOUSLY LOVELY, soft, warm yearling mohair/lambswool yarn.  Because, you see, I have a pair of socks that I made for myself out of the same yarn (you can read about them here) and I wear them all the time in the winter.  I am using the scraps of the yarn for my socks as color trim in his, since these were one-of-a-kind small skeins produced using all-natural dyes (cochineal and marigold, as I recall), and the vendor, local to me in Montgomery, Vermont, was not able to reproduce the colors, try as she might when I asked her for more yarn in the same colors. So natural gray it is, with the green and plum stripes. There was not enough of either the green nor the plum to make a whole pair of socks for me, hence the stripes and the color work, which turned out to be a nice effect after all.  And now I am literally using up every last scrap of the colors in these socks, to add the stripes to the gray. 

It appears that even when I was a newbie knitter, I had an eye for the spectacular yarn. This is super-expensive sock yarn... to the tune of $60 a pair.

I can hear the gasps of the non-knitters in the background. But it is unique and beautiful and worth it. Using the great wisdom of people like my friend Claudia, we measure the cost of the socks by the number of hours I spend at my hobby knitting them.  Say it takes me 12 or 16 or 20 hours to knit these socks (I don't keep track).  That's pretty reasonably priced, good, clean entertainment, no? 

It is not a simple equation that ends there.  You then take that sum and multiply it by a factor of [a lot] when you love the result you produced if it is for you, or [even more] when it is for someone else who appreciates the handknits. Then for each time you wear it or the recipient wears it, the cost of the yarn is reduced another order of magnitude, while at the same time the value of the finished item increases by double that order of magnitude. If you SEE the recipient wear it repeatedly, which is an expression of caring and love which is beyond measure and makes your heart swell to the point it hardly fits into your chest cavity, you have reached the point of infinity of value of the item, and the cost of the yarn is then pushed deep into the negative numbers.

There you have it:  The New Knit Math.

Right, then. Gone to cast on. Someone will have new socks for his birthday which, conveniently, is this month.

100. About That Knitting Thing

On this occasion of the 100th post of the year, I decided to bring in some knitting content. What the hell.

I've been plugging away on my latest favorite Noro striped scarf.  I do wish I could find my first one, the one that was more orangey and was made of more deep, dark colors.  I'm sure it's around here somewhere where the cleaners chucked it.  (I hope)

But meanwhile, I've been wearing my No. 2 one often. Love that thing! The weather has been flirting with being warm, but it really ISN'T so much.  So I fool myself into thinking it's time for spring clothing by wearing a light jacket, like my sweet new jean jacket, and wear the super-warm Noro scarf with it to keep me warm and add a splash of pizzazzy color.  It's amazing how a warm neck keeps a body warm when it's really too cold yet to be gallivanting out and about with just a light jean jacket. 

And the recalcitrant sock (I've been using that adjective a lot lately, hm?) has been recompleted, and I'm so glad I redid it. This time it has a very cute and perfectly-fitting Dutch heel a la Nancy Bush in "Knitting Vintage Socks."

   

There's a garter stitch "seam" down the center of the heel, a cute little break for the eye. Do you know how hard it is to photograph your own foot like this?  Good thing I'm a contortionist.

I carried the ribbed portion down the foot, too.  I'm just a ribby girl.  What can I say?

I'm glad I pulled that book off the shelf where it was mouldering and reacquainted myself with it. Awesome book, now that I have....dare I say it? .... become a sock knitter?  Nah. Couldn't be.  Second Sock Syndrome is sure to set in now that I have completed this cute little sock that can be worn with picot-edged cuff up or down.

   

Mmmm. Pretty Koigu.  I know I said these were going to be for someone else, but it's like taking a bite out of a cookie, right?  I've worn it, so I might have to keep it. And it fits my narrowish, high-arched foot so well, it's almost like it's custom-made or something.  Oh, yeah...That's because it is.

Speaking of recalcitrant, Amaryllis Cam continues. Here's Rilona as of yesterday:

Thanks so much to reader Catherine for recommending Firefox 3 Beta.  I downloaded it and said goodbye to my former woes. I love it! (so far) Gourd, it's good to have the blog. Talk about a problem, and it's fixed. Now I just have to talk about a few other problems, and maybe my life will be perfect, right?

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Perhaps I need to refuel my karma by making some:

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR DO-GOODERS:

1.  I've been asked by fellow blogger Carol of Mad For Knit to spread the word about her friend Gayle's fundraising efforts for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.  She will be running the Boston Marathon and has fallen quite short of her pledge goal.  Carol has prizes for donations!  Go read about it here, and donate here if you can.  Thank you and best of luck to Gayle!

2.  And Elizabeth D. told me about this.  Go take a peek and help send kids with cancer to summer camp. It'll feel so good! 

95. Rule To Live By No. 3

If you're gonna do it, do it right. 

A little hard frogging on the weekend never hurt anyone.

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I would hate to be misunderstood by the non- or new knitters, so, for your edification, here is an article about frogging.

89. A New Title (And A Contest)

Now Norma Knits
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Only Nominally A Knitting Blog
(but who cares?)

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I just love ya, Gale. 

If you follow the link, you'll see that Gale, photographer, book-writer, and adventurer extraordinaire, gave me an E for Excellent blog rating.  Part of her review carried the words, "only nominally a knitting blog but who cares?"  Of course I immediately took (faux) umbrage and said, "Hey!" 

But then I paused to (faux) think about it and said, "Oh, yeah.  THAT."

Gave me a chuckle, it did.  But of course it is the truth, and it's something I've been thinking (and writing) about for a while, wondering if I should change the name of the blog to more accurately reflect what I'm all about.  But the question remains: What the fuck AM I all about? 

Everything. (I flatter myself) Or a lot, anyway. Which I hope is not the same as "scatterbrained." 

Way back in the day, long before The Blog, my online persona for email and eBay and such was (and still is, in case you're into voyeurism as to what it is I've bought and sold on eBay, and I just know that you are.....) "Northerneclectic."  That really does capture the essence of what I write and think and do better than "Norma Knits."  The idea of "Now Norma Knits" was intended to have the emphasis on the word "NOW," as in, "Norma does a whole lot of stuff and goes through phases like she goes through toilet paper, and now she knits, too."  The "2" in my URL is meant to be a cutesy way of saying "too." 

Now do you get me? Well, I doubt anyone will ever truly GET me, but does that help make it at least slightly less foggy?

Someone who's known me via the blog for ages recently said that she thought my old email address, "Northerneclectic," would be a cool name for the blog.  I like it, too, but I've worked so long and hard to create a space for myself here that it seems kind of hard to change the name now.  I've seen other bloggers try that and land with a big thud. Also, I've mentioned, I really like being in the minority of bloggers who use their name in their title, because at gatherings of bloggers, I love feeling like a person with a name when meeting someone, rather than the "And what is your blog name?" thing. 

BUT I am thinking of changing it slightly to conform to Gale's idea, because I am SERIOUSLY HEAD OVER HEELS IN LOVE WITH IT and it makes me laugh and fits my personality.  Anything or anyone that makes me laugh gets gold stars in my book. I'll be needing a new banner.  I'm just throwing that out there in case anyone has the overwhelming urge to design it.

Ooooh, I have an idea:  Let's turn it into a contest.  The one whose design I like best gets to have the second Merlin Tree spindle. I suppose I should set a deadline.  Let's say April 15th.  Give us all something to look forward to rather than filing our taxes, hm?  That hopefully gives people enough time to think about it, but not enough time to forget about it. I'm looking for something sort of elegant, and sort of highbrow, but also sort of smartass and sassy. Anyone want to have a go at it?

[edited:  Hey everybody, RELAX!  Nothing is going to change.  Except the decorative thingy that we call a banner at the top. I've retired the old banner and we have above what is sort of a blank slate until we replace it with one that is to my liking. It'll still be the same URL, the same blog, the same predictable-in-my-unpredictability me, even Now Norma Knits.  But the subtitles will be added, and hopefully the banner will be more upscale, brought into the new millennium so to speak, and more closely related to ME.]

Look!  She knits!

A  heel is born. Can a toe be far behind?

(This sock is not nearly as orange as the setting sunlight would seem to imply.)

84. Fun While It Lasted

Behold my first picot edge, perfectly executed. 

No, no; hold your applause and your pats on the back for a later time.
 
I had a funny feeling. 

I tried it on. 

Way.
too.
big.

Very pretty Koigu, though, hm?

Ah, well.

Take two?

64. It's a Pair

The other day I was hanging out in the medical school building, and two students walked by.  The girl said to the guy, "Your socks don't match." He said, "Hey, they're fraternal!" and he lifted his pants legs to show her. I was soooo wishing they were going to be handknit socks -- I even had my camera with me -- but they weren't. It was just another anticlimactic blogger's moment. 

Trekking Zitron 158 Socks

They're very close, but careful DNA testing would reveal that they are not identical. Compare the bottoms of the two heels.  And the stripes are ever so slightly different in a couple places. I even kitchenered the toes, which may not be a big deal for you, but hey, it's a very big deal for me. This video helped.

I'm happy that they're done, and that I finally made peace with the yarn. I like 'em. They're bright and warm, and did I mention?  They're done.  I bet you never expected it of me, didja? 

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ALERT:  Tomorrow is my blogiversary and I'm hosting a sweet little giveaway.  This is the time for lurkers to come out of the woodwork.  All you need to do to be entered in the giveaway is to leave a comment that day. That's the only requirement:  It has to be between 12:01 a.m. and 11:59 p.m. EST March 6th.  So be sure to come back tomorrow.

56. Glimpses Into My Personal Correspondence

Dear Cara:

I'm so sorry I missed your surprise baby shower on Saturday. I keep hearing what a wonderful party Ann put on, and now I'm even more super-sad that I missed it and missed seeing all you fun people. I moped all day Saturday.

Well, anyway, here's something you would have opened had the storm not kept me from getting there:

Don't worry, you would not have had to FAKE-exclaim delight. They would not have looked like those big shapeless blobs.  That's the way they looked pre-felting. (cell phone in photo for scale) 

I showed the first completed one in my blog the other day:

...and nobody guessed what it was.  I don't know why.

But isn't felting marvelous?  I wish I could transform my face and body as easily as I can transform a felted item. Just stick me in the bath, whirl me around, give me some hot agitation and friction for a few minutes (stop that), and out would pop a new, shapely, firm, smooth version. But I digress. This is not only about me.  It's also about you and That Baby to Be.

This is more like how they would have looked when you actually opened them.

Cute, hm?  (See the cell phone hiding under that one in the first picture? See how much the little boot shrunk and firmed and shaped up?) They make me think of felted galoshes. Don't let the babe splash too much in mud-puddles with them, though -- wool gets wet! 

Well, I know how you feel superstitious about having baby items in the house before the baby arrives, so I'll wait and send these after.  Hope you had a good time at the shower even without me and got loads of nice gifts.

Love,

Norma

P.S.  They are called "Fat Baby Booties," designed by Bev Galeskas.  The pattern was in Interweave Felt, Special Issue 2007, and I'm told they also appear in her book, Felted Knits.  It's an absolutely brilliant pattern. I was heard to exclaim and known to write to my friends several times during the knitting of these, "Boy-man, I have nothing but respect for these designers, I tell ya.  How do they know how to turn plain knitting stitches into three-dimensional objects? How do they do this?! Totally brill." 

I used Patons Classic Merino wool, and I knitted the medium infant size. It took three goes through the washing machine to get them felted the way I wanted them.

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Dear Sandy:

I spent all day Saturday moping around because I could not make it to your house Friday night on the way to our little planned adventure to go to Cara's shower on Saturday. Frickin' weather. I must be building up some seriously good future traveling karma is all I can say. 

Well, here are photos of part of what I was going to bring to share with you Friday night, each carefully chosen because, well, it's all from Vermont, but also because of each one's name.

Our favorite.  Because we dream of being cave-dwellers.  I can tell you, since I ate a lot of it this weekend, that it's damn good cheese, too.

No knitter's selection of artisanal cheeses is complete without a shepherd's cheese.

In Vermont, a Champlain Triple is even better than a Champlain Double.  All right, we won't go there. I know how this subject makes you uncomfortable.

In Vermont, companies don't shy away from getting political. Surprised?

So how did I spend my mopey Saturday?  Well, I moped, silly.  I went for a mopey workout, I knitted mopily, I steeped myself mopily in k.d. lang and Nora Jones, and then I mopily ate cave-dweller's cheese and drank smoky wine while having a date with George Clooney.  After that, I stopped moping. George will improve my mood every time.

All in all, it wasn't a bad day. Sometimes a good mope is good medicine. But I missed ya wicked.

Love,
Norma