Oct 14 2008

on the needles

It’s the middle of October and I’m in a bit of a knitting panic. I had wanted to gift hand knitted items for the holidays to many, many friends and family and I just don’t think I’m going to be able to do as many as I’d like. :-(

The weather turned here suddenly over the weekend. I was up in the middle of the night and the winds were howling around and I realized it was fall already. It was chilly and I shivered a bit that night, being too lazy to go downstairs to get another comforter. The next day, some conversation with the spouse yielded the discovery that the heating isn’t turning on. Joy.

I’ve been bundling up myself and Spice and am feeling the need for warmer clothing for her. Yes, we live in sunny, warm Hollywood, CA. But our house is in the hills and shaded by lots of trees and is older and badly insulated. The downstairs living room, kitchen and guest room are all quite cold and when it’s windy outside, you can actually feel the draft like a whisper of a breeze indoors! All of this is just to point out why thick woolen soakers on Spice is not such a crazy idea…

Since I crochet faster than I knit, against rationality, I bought Victoria Schiffen’s Dragonfly Longie pattern to whip up some longies. I did because I had started a pair of knitted longies off the top of my head in super bulky Burly Spun, learned how to do short rows on fly only to realize that I didn’t understand the general butt shape I needed. For some reason, crochet just makes so much more structural sense to my brain, so anything I crochet first makes more sense when knitted later. So I bought the pattern and felt instantly foolish because if I’d just sat down with a cup of tea and a sketch book, I could have figured it out myself and saved myself $12. *sigh*

(Hmm.. Harley is leaning against my cold feet. Warm cat. Maybe I could make cat bed slippers somehow, to always keep a warm cat on my feet…)


Anyhow, the longies turned out pretty nice. She suggests a #7 hook, which I do not have. I have three G/6’s and four H/8’s, but not a single #7? Odd. I used the #8 and it’s a little ‘holey’ for my liking, but that could be because I used Lion Brand Fisherman, which always runs a little thin for worsted weight. I’ll be trying the next one with Cascade 220 and a G/6. I also strayed from the pattern in a very impatient-me type of way. The bulk of the pattern is worked in the round by joining each round with a slip stitch, chaining one and starting the next round. For some reason, I hate doing this and prefer to work in one long spiral, so I did that for the legs and the hips/waist. You can only really tell from the back, where the spiral starts near the center butt piece, and at the “end” where the fpdc/bpdc ribbing starts. I can’t tell at all on the legs. I haven’t decided yet if the convenience is worth the look; from other people’s pictures, the joined rounds result in what looks like a seam running up from the middle of the butt, which I think I find equally unappealing. I haven’t quite decided yet. :-)

These longies are super fast, but it’s still pushing my other on-the-needles projects out..

What’s awful is that this pushed out the other projects I wanted to do by Christmas.

  • Kitty Pi in grey for Harley. Using Brown Sheep Burly Spun.
  • A shawl for my mother’s friend Dorathy.
  • Socks for me in Colinette’s Jitterbug.
  • Red hat for the spouse. I’ve been promising this for, like 3 years.
  • Scarf for the spouse. I picked up the yarn for it, Garnstudio’s DROPS Alapaca in Goteborg maybe 2 years ago. *sigh* See a pattern here?
  • A cute hat/scarf/mitten set for my nephew.
  • A red and black scarf for my cousin.

This on top of Spice and household-y things and trying to get sorted for traveling over Christmas. Eek!

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