White Lace Hades

We've set the date. We're getting married May 22, 2010. This means I really need to get moving on the veil knitting.

I consider myself a pretty competent knitter, certainly a pretty fearless one but this project may be my undoing. See that?



That is about 12 hours worth of work. Doesn't look like it does it? That's because I had to frog the thing more times than I care to count. Part of my problem was the DPNs. Every time I had to tink back I ended up dropping stitches, losing my place and having to start over. Using lifelines wasn't helping much either. I finally went out and bought a 16 inch circ and that helped quite a bit.

These are some of the swatches I did before getting started. I'm normally not much of a swatcher but figured it would be a good idea this time. I originally planned on using Jaggerspun Zephyr but decided it was too thick. I received an assortment of lace yarn for swatching from someone on the Ravelry With this String group (best wedding board ever) and decided on Cashwool by Lana Borgessia. It's frighteningly thin but it creates a very light and airy fabric.



Here is my progress as of today. I decided to use Meg Swansen's Spanish Peacock Shawl. It took me awhile to figure out the marker moves but I think I've got it now.

Sock Summit

A few weeks ago I decided I could go to Sock Summit after all. Registration for classes and other events happened this morning. If you've been around Ravelry today you may already know that it did not exactly run smoothly. Some people, myself included, found themselves banging their heads against the keyboard at server issues. When I first got onto registration I only got into one class that I wanted and scrounged one more.

I was one of the lucky ones who was at the right place at the right time when the server coughed up spaces in previously sold out classes and eventually got the things I wanted. So take that as a caveat to what I am going to say next.

I am, frankly, disgusted by some of the behavior exhibited on Ravelry today. I know people are disappointed and I do not begrudge them their right to express as much but the personal attacks on the organizers, even suggesting boycotting their books or products, make me sad. Organizing an event like this is a lot of work and they deserve better than that. Here are some observations:

1. No system is perfect. Example, the Vancouver 2010 lottery system. There are thousands of people who were disappointed to not get a single ticket in that allocation. Each and every time there is more demand than supply, there will be disappointed people.
2. There is only so much you can do to increase supply. Sock Summit is limited by the number of hours available, the availability of teachers and most of all, the limits of the facility. Building/fire codes will only allow so many people in a room. Again, some Olympic venues hold over 20,000 people and they are still sold out. I believe that the SS organizers knew going in that classes were going to fill fast but short of holding them in a stadium, what were they supposed to do?
3. Servers crash. Technology fails. It happens sometimes despite our best efforts.
4. People make mistakes. Even if some of this could have been avoided through something Tina or Stephanie could have done, it is not fair to attack them. People make mistakes all the time, especially when they're trying something for the first time. They then take those mistakes and learn from them. I bet SS is doing a lot of learning at the moment.
5. No one is entitled to anything (notwithstanding the SS team's entitlement to a few stiff drinks) no matter how much they saved, how hard they worked or what they sacrificed in order to go. No one is more worthy than anyone else. In fact, we are not entitled to Sock Summit at all.

Is it strange that I am sorely tempted to try and organize a knitting event in Vancouver?

Big News

I’m engaged! It still feels kind of surreal to write that but oh so great. He proposed on Friday. Actually, it started while I was still at work. For almost as long as we’ve been dating, he has sent me occasional love notes via email. At some point I started calling these gooey emails and the term stuck. So on Friday afternoon he sent me a gooey email about each month of our relationship. Some were sweet, some were funny and they all made my day after a very tense morning. Though I suspected something was happening (I’ve known this was coming since we bought the ring together a few weeks ago) I didn’t want to get my hopes up so I tried to remain calm on the trip home.



When I arrived home, I found flower petals leading down the stairs to our door, which had a flower stuck in the handle. Then, when I opened the door, the first thing I saw was a glass containing two tulips. Once I came inside he presented me with a large bouquet of tulips and a mysterious purple flower before getting on one knee and asking me to be his wife (squee!). He said other stuff too and I just wish I could remember any of it but I was too focused on the “it’s actually happening!” excitement.



Afterwards, we went out for dinner at the Red Door to celebrate. Good food and good atmosphere.

On Saturday I went to Fibreswest with Lara and Gabrielle from Thursday night knitting. I bought my first wedding purchase: yarn for my veil. Saturday evening we went to Maple Ridge to celebrate with my parents and a few family friends.



Those are the flowers his dad sent us.

WIPs

Although I have a number of projects officially on the needles, I’m only actively working on two: the Tilted Duster and Leyburn Socks.

I’ve been wanting to knit Tilted Duster for a while. I have a long sweater that I love but it’s getting old and worn and I decided to replace it with something I knit. I picked up the yarn at WEBS while on vacation and I’ve been dying to cast on ever since. I started it around the time I finished the knitting for CPH. It’s going quite fast. I finished the top parts (the back and both fronts) in a few days. I’ve sewn them together now and started the skirt. Picking up all those stitches was a bit tedious but I survived and I’ve now finished 3 out of 9 skirt repeats. This project goes surprisingly fast. Due to its size I’d expected it to be long and tedious. I think it helps that it is super easy to memorize.

I’m using Berroco Peruvia. It’s quite soft and the colour is beautiful but I do have this warning: it does not frog worth a damn. I completely messed up the right front the first time around but ripping it out was so frustrating that I decided to just start over with new yarn. Luckily the fronts knit up super fast and I have plenty of yarn. My goal is to finish this project by the end of the month and I think I’m on track to do that. That way I’ll be able to wear it as a spring jacket this year.

Stash Stash Stash aka Yarn Pron Galore

I apologize for the unplanned hiatus. Time to get updated.

My yarn stash has grown substantially since the start of the year, mostly due to January being an excellent month for stash enhancement. First, I bought yarn at the Three Bags Full sale: 7 skeins of Green Mountain Spinnery Mountain Mohair, 2 skeins of BSA Bulky that have turned into mittens, 2 skeins of Rabbitworks Toe Jam sock yarn and 2 skeins of Fiddlesticks Zephyr Laceweight.


Then we got to Vermont and my Loopy Ewe Xmas shopping spree order was waiting. In it were 2 skeins of Yarn Pirate Alpaca in Sweet Magnolia and Bitter Valley, 2 skeins of Tuscan Grove Venice in Eggplant and Mint Ganache, 1 skein of Enchanted Knoll Farm in Black Magic Woman, 1 skein of Gypsy Knits DK in Robin Hood, 1 skein of Spirit Trail Fiberworks in Harbor Fog, 1 skein of Indie Dyer in Golden Eye, 1 skein of Chameleon Colorworks I Black Cherry and 1 skein of Creatively Dyed Calypso in Promise. Yum, yum.


Among the odds and ends that I’ve acquired over the last few months are two skeins of Wollmeise in Baba Jaga and Baristo and my artist’s choice order from Sundara: I got Foreign Correspondent and Smashed Berries. I was a little nervous about getting surprise colours but I love these.


I better get started knitting socks!

27 hours of travel later

I am in Vermont. Getting here was a bit of a fiasco. First, we had to catch a bus at 5am to get down to Seattle for the flight (it is stupidly expensive to fly to Albany from Vancouver). We arrived 4 hours early to Seatac so we checked in, cleared security and waited around. We learned our flight was delayed by 30 minutes and became concerned that we would miss our connection. Turns out that was unnecessary.

So we got on the plane and the flight was uneventful, even kind of comfortable since the plane was quite empty and we each had a row of three seats to ourselves to stretch out and sleep on. We arrived in Washington D.C. with 40 minutes to spare, only to discover that our connection had been cancelled.

To make matters worse, they didn't have any decent alternatives. The best they could do was a flight from D.C. to Philidelphia the next morning, with a connection to Albany that would have us arriving in the late afternoon: about 8 hours of travel to get an hour away. We found a train that left DC at 3:00am (it was around 11 at this point) and arrived in Albany at 9 in the morning. After some consideration we chose this option and did finally make it to Albany.

But seriously, 27 hours of travel? I could have gone to Australia.

A knitting new year

Knitting Goals

I’m not going to make any ‘resolutions’ for my knitting this year. I resolved to do a lot of things in 2008 but due to the wonderful unpredictability of life, a lot of them didn’t happen. That’s okay but this year, I want to approach my knitting vision for the year without an element of obligation.

My first goal is to knit three sweaters. This has already been a particularly cold winter and I would really like more sweaters. However, because I am a knitter I don’t really want to go out and buy a bunch of sweaters.
Knit 10 pairs of socks. I have a lot of sock yarn. I do not however, have a lot of socks. I would like to remedy this.

Andrew has upped the ante on this. I get a prize if I accomplish goals 1 and 2 (I don’t think he thinks I can do it). If I don’t succeed, he gets 2 pairs of socks. I’m going to go about this honestly and state for the record here that these must be ten pairs of adult socks and 2 full sized adult sweaters with long sleeves. My Central Park Hoodie in progress doesn’t count.

Stash mindfully. I’m not going to not buy yarn. That way lies madness. After all, hasn’t the Yarn Harlot herself demonstrated that having a stash comes in handy in case of financial emergency? However, I want to pay more attention to what I’m stashing and why. I would like to consider what sort of project I would make with the yarn (not necessarily a specific pattern). I also want to try to visit yarn stores with a shopping list that takes my queue into consideration. And cut back on the sock yarn.

Spin every day. I’m not going to set a goal of ten minutes a day but I do want to try and spin, even just a little, every day.

Cast on mindfully. When I’m in the midst of a big project, especially a frustrating one, I get startitis and cast on a bunch of things that end up just sitting around until I either decide I don’t want to knit them and rip them out or I finish something and can pick them up again. The result is a collection of barely started WIPs.

Love knitting and remember I love it even when my project is driving me crazy

Blog more

Not quite knitting but related: get a digital SLR camera

Learn to dye yarn.

Keeping my knitting/stash organized both in reality and virtually. Ie, keep WIPs contained and add projects and stash to Ravelry in a timely manner.