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Yesterday night I got my invite! Wheee! I'm pocketsize

Fetching illnesses

Ill. Horrible horrible migraine that woke me up at 4.30. There were no painkillers in the house. Better now, but it still hurts.

But I actually just wanted to post this: http://community.livejournal.com/knitting/9030467.html

Stitch'n'Bitch

Yesterday was a S'n'B Sunday.
Once more, I barely didn't make it, but I got myself out of the house, and went. I arrived a while earlier, as I always do. I just like being able to be the first person and have other people approach me, rather than me having to go up to a group. I was starting to lose hope, but two girls turned up at quarter past, about 2 minutes from each other. Johanna turned up a while later, and then one more girl. 120 (5!)
I don't think I can remember everybody's names, though, which is a pity. So we knitted (a balaklava, two fetchings, a jumper and my top), and talked, and had nice tea and coffee. It was really pleasant. One of the women told us about her son's accident, and we talked about flats and homes, and knitting techniques, and spinning. I felt this strange bond throught the knitting to these completely random women, and they were suddenly not stranger, but comrades in needles. I enjoyed that.
To top it all off, I managed to finish the body of Tomato.
I finally got to try it on, and discovered it fits. They said it looked really nice. I started the neck ribbing when I got home, and that's almost done as well. It shouldn't take too long, although that will clearly depend on how much time I have to knit this week.

Today, due to a weekend of not good sleep and horrible headaches, Cristina is really sleepy, so she'd like to share her sleepy kitten with everybody:

Wish me luck

Because I have apparenly nothing better to do, I have decided to start my first own pattern: socks. I have a mostly clear concept of what I want, so I can post a sketch when I have scanned it (I tried in Paint, and you could barely tell it was a sock).
Here are some things to watch out in the creation of my socks:

Limitations

• As said earlier, it can't be wool. I'm going for cotton, and hopefully I can find something with a bit of synthetic stretch on it.

Concepts

• They have to be warm sock to slip my feet in when I come back from work
• Chunky yarn, so they are warm socks and knit up fas
• To make them fit without the stretch, I'm going to make the leg open, kind of with a cut in the outside, and hold together with buttons.
• In the outside, possibly starting with the leg and continuing down the side of the foot, a cable
• Some thick stitch for the sole, might have to ask knitting for help on this one
  

Things to know

• Never done cables before! You take some stitches out to a cable needle, and then knit the next n stitches, and then the cable needle. The cable slans to one side or the other depending if you take the cable stitches back or front. Then you knit as many plain rows as stitches you cabled, and start again. At least the stitches right before and right after the cable are purls.
• You will finish Tomato, but you ought to finish some of your UFOs too.

This is all.

I are teh strong

Not only knitting happens in my life, although sometimes "the knit, the geek and the therapy" sums it up pretty well. Today, for now, there is geek and therapy.

I can program in Python. I have made a Hello World, and that for me means that I can program on it. Increasing up to 5 the languages I can program in.

I overcame my depression this morning and, rather than phone in sick, I got up and got to work (albeit really late), and managed to cheer myself up on the way. I saw the picture of the cutest duckling on the way in, and the weather, sunny but frosty, made everything look beautiful. Today, I won.

Also you have to wind it

Woohoo! Finished my boyfriend socks!

They are made in my modified version of Knitty's Thuja pattern. I didn't really do the modification on purpose, I think I just misread the pattern, and only noticed a lot later on. It is not that much of a dramatic change, I just simply used a 3x1 rib throughout the sock rather than the seed stitch that the pattern calls for. I also suspect that, had I tried to do the proper seed stitch, I would have had to undo lots of rows as I forgot and just knitted on.

The socks are knitted in Inca Cloud Artesano Alpaca in charcoal. They are plain but warm socks, and they do fit my boyfriend nicely. To match his feet and the yarn, they are knitted with 3.5mm bamboo dpns. Since the first time I tried bamboo (because they didn't have metal in the size I wanted) I fell in love with it, and now that is what I wish to knit with.

The 1x1 rib has 10 rows, and there are 42 rows until the heel starts. The 42 is not an arbitrary number. After all, I am knitting socks for my boyfriend.
When I knitted other socks I found the pattern very tight around the bridge of the foot, so I picked up and knitted 12 stitches rather than 11, doing the decrease once more. After the decrease is done, I knitted 43 extra rows for the foot (I wanted to do 42 again, but the sock proved too small). The toe decreases also have 3 extra knitted rows, after decrease knits 7, 5 and 3.

The socks were, as the pattern promised, incredibly fast to knit. This was the 3rd pair I did, and I think I will keep it in store for when I want to knit more socks as presents. I would like to knit some for me, but I don't know yet how the pattern would react to non-wool yarns.

In the meantime, I am several rows into my blue Tomato. And it's coming along really nice.

[Pics of the sock will happen once I get my boyfriend to wear the socks, when he comes back from his week away. I would try them on myself, if I wanted the skin of my feet to fall off. Which I don't.]

Edit, 06/01/08: Pictures!

Planes and needles

I went to Madrid on a business trip, and knitted knitted knitted. One of the evenings, when I was really tired, I stayed in the hotel and read, ordered a pizza and knitted while watching some TV. It was so lazy, but so nice, and just what I needed. Now the second of my boyfriend's socks is well under way (possibly about 2/3 of the way there). I started the first couple of rounds of Tomato as well, as I decided that I had earned it.
I need to finish the socks by this weekend, when he leaves for the mountains. The socks will keep him warm, because they are knitted with love. Also you have to wind it*.

I made some elderly Spanish ladies in the plane jealous, because I was knitting and, had they know, they would have bought their crochet.

* If you don't get this reference, go now and watch Futurama. All of it.