Slow Progress, but No Pics

I wish I could give pictures of that shawl. I'm really proud of its progress so far (even if I'm only in #4 of 14 repeats of the second chart). For my first big lace project it's going well. I'm more interested in posting this questionnaire, even if no one here knows me well enough to answer. I loved the book and movie!

With Limited Computer Access

At Ohio University we are now on Winter Break and will be so until January. I am remaining in Athens in order to work as a production assistant at a local publishing company. Hurray! However, my internet access is limited to the times I can go to the library, so no pictures until January unless things change. I did finish off my own pair of Rannoch gauntlets, and wear them every day at work (where the office is freezing!). I'm going to start the Adamas shawl for my grandmother and I ordered the new KnitPicks harmony wood needles! It will be my first shawl and I'm a bit nervous. I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving and I wish all a merry Christmas to come! (Just hopefully not to stressful with knitting gifts!)

Rannoch Pattern

Apparently people are actually interested in this pattern. I've never written one out before, so hopefully this is intelligible and I don't over-explain everything.

Materials:
worsted weight yarn, roughly 180 yards on the safe side
U.S. size 7 dpns
bit of waste yarn (contrasting color helps)

Abbreviations:
CB: place next 2 stitches on dpn or cable needle, hold to back, K2, then K2 held stitches
CF: place next 2 stitches on dpn or cable needle, hold to front, K2, then K2 held stitches

Staghorn Cable:
Row 1 (and all other odd rows): P2, K16, P2
Row 2: P2, K4, CB, CF, K4, P2
Row 4: P2, K2, CB, K4, CF, K2, P2
Row 6: P2, CB, K8, CF, P2

Repeat rows 1-6 for Staghorn Cable

2x2 Garter Rib:
Row 1: K across needle
Row 2: K2, P2 to end of needle

Repeat rows 1 and 2 for Garter Rib

For both gloves:
CO 42 sts

Divide sts as follows: 10 on 1st needle (needle where your cast-on started), 20 on 2nd (this can be split to 10 & 10 if you prefer a set of 5), 12 on 3rd

Join to begin working in the round. K1, P1 ribbing for 4 rows or longer if you like.

Keep in mind that your join will be the center back (or underside) of your mitt.

When you have finished ribbing, begin working Garter Rib across needle 1. You should end on a knit stitch. On needle 2, work the first row of the Staghorn Cable. Needle 3 will be Garter Rib again, ending on a purl stitch. It helps me to remember that rows where I knit on needles 1 & 3 are the "simple" cable rows.

Continue working in this manner until you have repeated the Staghorn Cable 9 times.

Right Glove:
Work across the first two needles in pattern. K the first 2 sts of needle 3, then, using waste yarn, work the next 6 sts in pattern. Then slip these 6 sts back to the left needle and using working yarn, work them again in pattern and finish round. Skip to both glove finish.

Left Glove:
K the first 2 sts on needle 1, then, using waste yarn, work the next 6 sts in pattern. The rest is the same as Right Glove.

Both Gloves:
Repeat the Staghorn Cable 2 more times, then switch back to K1, P1 ribbing for as many rows as you began with. BO all sts.

Carefully remove the waste yarn from your thumbholes. You should be able to find 6 sts on both top and bottom. Insert dpns. Join new yarn. You can work this in whatever pattern you want, but my thumbs were P2, K2, P2 (1st needle), pick up and K3 on first side, P2, K1 (2nd needle), K1, P2, pick up and K3 on other side (3rd needle).

Work in your chosen pattern 4 rounds, then switch to K1, P1 ribbing for 4 rounds. BO all sts. Repeat for other glove. Weave in all ends.

Enjoy!


Please let me know if there is any problem you find with this pattern. I appreciate positive and negative input. Thanks.

New Mitts for Me!

So, today I finished this mitt. I made it up, though very loosely based on the Dashing pattern. I'm debating writing up the pattern for public use. Anybody actually want it? I'm still working on its mate, but I don't know if I'll be on the internet again any time soon, so I wanted to post it now. I'm calling it Rannoch, which if you've ever read Fire Bringer, you'll understand (Staghorn Cable). I'm cheap, so it's made from Caron Simply Soft in Deep Plum Heather. Enjoy!!!
P.S. Please excuse the crappy pictures...again. And yes, I am arranging my roommate's bonsai tree...

Product Plug

So, I might end up working at Bath and Body Works, but this is not a mindless plug. If you are a knitter and your hands get seriously dried out by working with yarn, I would suggest this Rose Salve. It says it's mainly for lips and dried knees, elbows, etc., but it is great for hands!!! That is all.

Progress and Computer Fun

This is part of a "Boyfriend Sock" designed by slippedstitch, but it's going to be a Christmas present for my sister. Sorry for poor pictures, but this is my first toe-up sock, and I did a short row heel! (After 3 tries) *grumble, grumble*. But I think it's pretty!

Also, please note the unfancy, but new banner!

Dashing, yes?

Life is currently crazy. I got an internship for winter break that will cost me more than I'll earn, but I'm thrilled. Wedding planning is beginning, and finals week is at hand. Christmas knitting is underway, particularly a pair of Boyfriend socks for my sister, a scarf for my uncle, and The Cat has asked for an aran sweater! Do I appear to be Wonder Woman? Mediocre knitter without much time. That's a big request. Anyway, an FO for my friend Sarah.


Dashing by: Cheryl Niamath for Knitty
Red Heart Super Saver in Real Teal and something cranberry-ish

Not so good with the pictures, but she loves them!

Socktoberfest Conquered!

Okay, so I didn't conquer it quite as thoroughly as most people, but I consider my first pair of lacy socks knit during classes to be a sufficient accomplishment, even if there are only 2 days left. You'll humor me, right? Okay, everybody knows what these are. They're Monkeys, knit with Coleslaw colorway yarn from thankewe on size 3's. I know that's at least two sizes up, but my gauge with 1.5's was closer to a suggested 0 gauge, so I used the next size I had. So they look funny. Hopefully my friend with a love for mismatched socks will think they look funny enough by themselves? Also, I really need a better time and place for pictures...

Athens Halloween

As anyone who's really aware of the nature of Ohio University (that's OU, not OSU) knows, last night was Halloween. This means a small-scale Mardi Gras and wild, drunken revelry. For those of us who are not so alcoholically-inclined, not much is too be done but wander uptown and look at costumes. My camera wasn't cooperating, but I thought I would show someone else's picture of me as Medusa. I'm a cheapskate. My costume cost about 10 bucks, and I'm perfectly content with that.

I think I was at least sort of recognizable...

Knitting-wise, I knit through all my classes still, and have (finally) almost finished a pair of Monkeys for a friend, in addition to two never-ending scarves. That's what I get for knitting a double-thick scarf for my uncle for Christmas and knitting one for myself that I anticipate felting. Such is life...

A Meme...

These are the top 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users (as of some days ago). Bold what you have read, italicize what you started but couldn’t finish, and strike through what you couldn’t stand. Add an asterisk to those you’ve read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a novel
The name of the rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey*
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad*
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury tales*
The historian: a novel
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera
Brave new world
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A clockwork orange
Anansi boys
The once and future king
The grapes of wrath
The Poisonwood Bible: a novel
1984
Angels and demons
The Inferno
The satanic verses
Sense and sensibility
The picture of Dorian Gray*
Mansfield Park
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
To the lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s travels*
Les misérables
The corrections
The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime
Dune
The prince
The sound and the fury
Angela’s ashes: a memoir
The god of small things
A people’s history of the United States: 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A short history of nearly everything
Dubliners
The unbearable lightness of being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The scarlet letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake: a novel
Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the art of motocycle maintenance: an inquiry into values
The Aeneid*
Watership Down
Gravity’s rainbow
The Hobbit
In cold blood: a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The three musketeers


And gee, I thought I was a reader...

Another lovely day in the life of a college student...

Well, since last post I've finished my Jabberwock Socks and another pair of socks for a friend. I'm going to start making socks just to decrease my stash and practice new things.

The crummy thing about life is that it occasionally refuses to work with you. My car, my only form of off-campus transportation, as well as my fiancee's, has died. I don't specifically know how. It's bitterly unpleasant. I don't really worry about detailing too much here, because I know no one reads it, so I'll leave it at this and just feel better about telling someone. Wow. I sound like a 13-year old with a LiveJournal, with better spelling. Oh, woe is me...

Stabbity Fun!

So, yesterday I tested into schlager, the highest skill single weapon in our fencing organization. I'm thrilled, but nervous. I've only fought with it once, and it made my wrist rather sore. I'm also currently leading our club tourney by a few scant points. It's okay if I don't win, but I'd really like to...

Half an FO

So today I finished my first Jabberwock sock. Nothing exciting, but made from valutree's Jabberwocky handpainted sock yarn. It's just a simple ribbed sock, but it fits and I'm proud of it. (Never mind the dorm room decor.)


Not much else is going on. We're entering a three-day weekend, and my roommate's out, so late hours will be a given. Much fun will be had by all. Too bad school is almost over. Among many other things, internet connection will be almost zilch. Not to mention leaving a certain someone 120 miles away...

In addition, on a rather odd note, this is what happens when you combine swords and knitting. I was rather amused...

Foray into Blogging

So today I begin my first blog. I know it's dull. I don't know much yet. I really am not concerned with how many people come here to read, I just noticed how many knitters had their blogs to post pictures of WIPs and FOs. I wanted to be able to share my knitting pictures with the world as well. Never mind the fact that I'm still a relatively newbie knitter. I don't have any pictures yet, but it will happen soon. I foresee much knitting this summer. Hopefully someone will come along and read this, but if not, oh well.