My semi-annual update.

Well this is about the worst blog in the world, isn't it?

I have actually been knitting! I made a Shedir for my sister's birthday, which came out nice. It's in Rowan Felted Tweed. I didn't take any photos of it. Maybe sometime next winter my sister will wear it and I can get a photo then.

I'm also working on a pair of Froot Loop socks, in Jojoland Melody.



I am just about to start the heel flap on the second sock (pictures soon, perhaps), and here is the thing about Jojoland Melody: it is very variegated. Or not so much variegated as self-striping. OK, it's a three-ply yarn and the color of each of the plies changes at different points in the yarn. It's kind of like if you plied three slightly different colors of Noro together. And the way it looks and the way it shades, I like it very much. However, these socks are not going to match in any conventional sense of the word "match". The colors are quite different from each other. I tried to find an end that would be in a relatively similar place in the color to where I started, but alas I could not. Still, even if the socks don't match, I think they will go, which is fine. You hardly even see my socks anyways, since usually when I am wearing wool socks I am also wearing long pants and clogs.

I am also working on the Sapporo Norwegian ski sweater. Here's a not-that recent photo:



Imagine that with about eight more inches of red stockinette, and you will know what it looks like now. This was actually take two -- I knitted a couple of inches before I realized that it was twisted. Curse you, twisted knitting! That made me very very angry, in a silent rageful kind of way.

This sweater has been my baseball knitting, although the sweater is getting bulkier and more lap-filling just as the weather gets hotter, and I'm afraid that as it gets a bit more complicated (I am just about ready to start the colorwork) it may be a little less mindless. So I may have to set it down until September or take it someplace air conditioned to work on it. Or I could just work on the socks more.

I do have another pair of socks on deck -- I have some great red Cherry Tree Hill something or other that I'm looking forward to using. Actually I just have a lot of sock yarn, period. And socks are great for summer. Right now I'm trying to decide what sock or socks I should take on the 2-week trip to Switzerland I'll be taking in August. Lots of train and mountain knitting!

World Champion Socks! Also, an impasse.

So if you are the type of person who cares about such things, you will know that the Boston Red Sox just won the Worlds Series and so can officially be called the Best Team in Baseball! This was a really fun playoff season for me because I've probably paid more attention to baseball this season than ever before, and especially because I got to attend the first game of the world series through being lucky enough to have an awesome dad who is also lucky.

But I also feel like I deserved to be at that World Series game, because the Red Sox would never have gotten there without my lucky socks:



I bought the yarn for these socks just before the Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years, back in 2004. Then the yarn kind of languished, half-knitted into a boring plain sock during the 2005 and 2006 seasons. I frogged that sock and started knitting these ones a day or two before the Red Sox home opening game, and posted about them on the day of said home opener. I finished them back in August while watching (on TV) a game in which the Red Sox pummelled the White Sox 11-1.

So clearly, they were lucky socks. I crammed them into my clogs (they're pretty bulky socks -- I'm thinking I need to get some bigger shoes for wearing with handknit socks) and wore them to the World Series game last Wednesday. The Red Sox dominated the game! I couldn't wear them during the second and third games on the series, but I had them with me anyway. And I proudly wore them on Sunday night, when the Red Sox finished off the Rockies. They're powerful socks! I'll be knitting another pair of fancy red socks next baseball season, if anyone wants to join me. White Sox fans and fans of any other potentially knitting-related teams are also welcome to join in.

I've started a Henry scarf. I've just about finished the second pattern repeat of seven, so that makes me more than a quarter of the way finished. I'm hoping to finish it in time to give it to my dad for his birthday at the beginning of December. Here's what it looks like now:


Nothing to set the world on fire, and very time consuming, but very nice too. The yarn is Gloss from Knitpicks, which is also very nice. I like it a lot. It's an easy pattern to memorize so long as you don't get bogged down with line numbers and things. I knit a lot of it this past week while watching baseball games.

I'm also trying to start the Dale of Norway sweater I've been wanting to do. I've got the yarn, but the trouble is I can't seem to knit small enough. I could buy new, smaller needles (we're talking size 00 and 000 circs, which are only made by one company anyhow), or I could try and train myself to knit tighter. I'm afraid if I tried to knit tighter, I would get less even gauge. I don't know. I may just suck it up and buy the tiny needles, though it hurts me to do it! And the yarn will split like a bastard. Alas!