The apprentice has become the master...

...of making a mockery of herself.

I have stepped over the line. I have forgotten my place. I have betrayed my acknowledgement of my place as a knitter. I am designing a sock.

It's going to be a sock with a french heel and a partner with a Latvian braid that mirrors the first one. It will be in a PDF and it will be on Ravelry, for free. If I finish it, of course.

This all started, as many things involving my life do, with me watching television. I was halfway through an episode of How I Met Your Mother, when my mind began to wander. At the time, I was working on the third repeat of the Traveling Woman's first chart, which was a decent-enough reason for my mind wandering. It's a fairly repetitive pattern.

I had been toying with the idea of Fair Isle for a while. While I've gotten comfortable with lace and cabling, colorwork is somewhat beyond me. I can't quite figure out how to make it work. I have managed to successfully accomplish stranded colorwork and colorwork while double-knitting, one time each. It is not a source of comfort for me.

Part of the reason I decided to do this now was because I still had three balls of KnitPicks' Sprout-colored CotLin left over from my mother's tunic and a ball of CotLin in Harbor from when I knit my first Best Friend Scarf*. I knew I wanted to use them together, but I wasn't sure what for.

I decided on socks, but knew that Fair Isle socks in DK or even worsted weight would not be the easiest thing in the world to find a pattern for. I was right -- there were approximately eight patterns on Ravelry, none of which looked appealing.

Then, I thought, in blatant disregard of my skill level and design experience, "I should totally design my own."

Which leads us to this moment. It's going fairly well so far. I managed a Latvian braid without much incident and the actual colorwork hasn't gotten screwed up yet. I do wish the colors contrasted more -- there is actually a pattern that you can't really see up there -- but I haven't massively screwed anything up yet.

We haven't gotten to turning the heel, though. We'll see if I cry then.

*in case you were wondering, the current one remains unfinished and will probably stay this way for a while.

Things I do right and things I can't do

"There is no wrong way to knit. The debate between throwing the yarn and picking it, using circulars or straights, choosing Fair Isle or intarsia...it's all a moot point. If you get something knitted at the end of it, you are doing it right. We should all agree to stop correcting each other and deal with the more important issue: How wrong crochet is."

- Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (The Yarn Harlot), At Knit's End

I feel this quote right now, for two reasons. One: I'm pretty damn sure I don't hold my yarn the right way. I've watched four videos trying to figure out a Latvian braid and everyone holds their yarn looped over their index and pinky fingers. I used to think that this was an English thing, but apparently you're supposed to do it knitting Continental as well.

I have been knitting for four years. I've knit lace, cables, fair isle, socks, all holding the yarn the wrong way. The fact that I didn't realize this until now is ridiculous.

Well, I've knit this entire shawl wrong. Guess I should rip it out and start over.

That said, I don't care that I hold my yarn the wrong way. Since realizing this, I've tried holding it the right way. The right way makes zero sense. The right way makes my stitches too tight (as an aside, I think I've discovered why my gauge is always so loose). The right way doesn't let the yarn run smooth. The right way gets tangled around my hands.

The right way is wrong for me. My way works. So I will keep doing it.

Image Source: Kirsten Kapur on Ravelry

The second reason I am feeling the quote right now is that crochet is wrong. It just is. My opinion on this matter may stem from the fact that no matter how many times I try, no matter who explains it to me, no matter how many times I pick up one of those hooks...I cannot crochet.

People always wonder at the complex puzzle that is knitting, exclaiming to me: "crochet is so much easier!" These people are liars.  Knitting consists of two stitches: knit and purl. Everything after that point is just the same stitches done a bit differently. Cabling is just moving things around, lace is just adding holes on purpose, colorwork is just everyday black magic.

Crochet has a hook and there's only one of it and the stitches hang off the hook when you aren't using them? How are you supposed to know which stitches you're supposed to -- what, crochet? -- into? And, most importantly: once you've put your slipknot on the hook, how do you make more loops without transforming your hands into a tangled mess of yarn, more hooks than you started with, wounded pride, and regret?

Knitting is simple. Crochet makes no sense.

Which sucks, because I really like Kirsten Kapur's Thorpe hat pattern. I've been ogling it for about a year now, since I started reading her blog and blew through three years of posts in two days. The colorwork is simple, the yarn is bulky enough to make it a weekend project, it has earflaps and it looks very warm and comfy.

It also has a crocheted border.

I swear the universe is plotting against me.

Two Weeks Later...

Let's just ignore the fact that I haven't posted in two weeks. I started college. It was hard. It is still hard. Let's skip an update on that for now and get to the really important thing:

Look at those elegant background tables. Aren't they lovely?

I have taken to knitting in the cafeteria, and in the student union, and in the library, and on the quad, and before class, and after class. I am currently knitting Traveling Woman by Liz Abinante, in KnitPicks' Shadow Lace in Nocturne Heather. It was always my plan to knit this, so it shouldn't be surprising.

I am really liking this yarn. It is bluer than it is in the picture and it absolutely reminds me of the project's inspiration who is fictional and beautiful and my favorite. I will go into further detail in a later post. Right now, I have Computer Science homework.

The News You've All Been Waiting For

I finished Mass Effect 3 again. I know, I could hear your bated breath through the internet. I chose the Synthesis ending and then I cried. I think I might even slightly like the ME3 ending now -- I tend to like things that make me cry. Of course, it was 4:30 AM, so that might have been a contributor.

I also finished my East Gable Shawl, which is probably more interesting to those reading a knitting blog. It pinned out much faster than the Aeolian -- done after three episodes of How I Met Your Mother (do you think I watch too much Netflix?).

I would take twirly pictures with it as it is lovely, but now that I've finished with Mass Effect 3, I have to pack for university or something. I would rather be playing through Dragon Age again but my mum keeps prodding me and saying: "You only have two days" and "Half your clothing is still in the wash" and "How are you going to play video games at college if you don't pack your computer?"

I hate to say it, but I think she has a point on that one.

A kind of perseverance

I was fully expecting to fall to the temptation of winding the Nocturne Heather into a ball and starting on the Travelling Woman. As far as I was concerned, this post would consist of me posting a picture of the East Gable Shawl and then making a half-hearted excuse as to why I'm not working on it before showing you pics of my newer project. I don't know why I would feel the need to make excuses, but it seems to be an innate part of me.

This scene made me cry. For the fourth time.

Instead, I have found a solution to the repetitive knitting woes: knitting during video game cutscenes. The East Gable Shawl is actually the perfect project for this. Because it's repetitive, I don't need to consult a chart every five seconds to make sure I'm doing it right. I can just set it to the side while I'm shooting up the Citadel and then pick it up when I confront a Cerberus operative.

If you have never played Mass Effect 3, you have no idea what that sentence means -- suffice it to say, it's a long cutscene.

I am making steady progress on the East Gable now -- I'm almost to the purple end of the gradient in this yarn and I feel I'll probably bind off within the next few days. It will likely be blocked before I leave for college this weekend, though I'm suspecting that packing will delay that a bit.

For now, however, I'm going to return to blasting through the Silversun Strip and making out with attractive Canadian men voiced by Raphael Sbarge. If I'm lucky, more cutscenes are in my future.

Goodbye mountains, hello temptation

Have you ever wanted to have a skill but didn't have enough interest to practice or put effort into learning that skill? That's me and photography (and drawing and painting and visual art in general). I like to pretend I'm good at photography, a pretense aided by the panorama function on my phone, but I can't stage anything to save my life and I know nothing about lighting.

As a knitter who reads a lot of well-photographed knitting blogs, this can sometimes be frustrating. Then I discover the High-Dynamic Range Imaging feature on my phone and I can trick myself back into thinking that I'm a photographic savant.

Look at that shadow/light composition. I'm great at this.

I'm no longer surrounded by that panoramic view from above. I've returned home to the warm merino embrace of Knit Picks' Shadow Lace in Nocturnal Heather. It is bluer than the picture. It is also soft and it also reminds me of the person (or rather, character) that inspired me to add Travelling Woman to my queue. The explanation for that is for a later post, however. The explanation is very nerdy and ridiculous. You have been warned.

The East Gable Shawl is...progressing. The ellipsis makes it seem like I don't enjoy working on it, which is incorrect...but not exactly. It's not that it isn't gorgeous, it is. It isn't even that the yarn is taking longer to transition than I expected.

It's just that the shawl is the same 16 repeats, over and over again. While I'm sure this will turn out beautifully, it isn't the most interesting pursuit. I'm being tempted by Travelling Woman, even though it seems like there's a similar situation there.

Currently I'm still loyal to the East Gable, even if my loyalty is largely motivated by my resistance to the idea of winding 440 yards of silk weight into a ball. We'll see how long that resistance lasts.

The Vacation Diaries 8/6/15

The tunic is finished (Hallelujah!). I still need to block it and run it through the wash at least once to soften up the linen, but it's all seamed together and woven in and looking fine. My mum loves it. She already wants me to knit her a sweater.

I need to have a photographer friend, I swear.

That's the reason I now own the book above. knit, Swirl! by Sandra McIver is full of patterns for "One Piece, One Seam Swirl Jackets." Mum wants one and I have plans for Christmas.

The yarn in the photo has nothing to do with those plans. It is the ultimately soft 50 Shades of Gradient by The Fibre Studio. Approximately 560 yards of 100% Superwash Merino in Mallard. The picture doesn't do the colors justice.

Instead of waiting to get home to my Knit Picks' Shadow Lace and the Travelling Woman, I've started Judy Marples's East Gable Shawl. Never mind that I should probably work on the Best Friend Scarf sitting on my end table. That's one of the projects to work on when there isn't pretty gradient yarn to knit with. Plus, I'm sick of CotLin -- my last two projects have used that yarn.

Anyway, the point is I'm cheating on the scarf with a beautiful fingering-weight shawl. I know you've all done it, you have no right to judge.

The Vacation Diaries: 8/3/15

I have absconded away from my job and my upcoming semester and all of my responsibilities and have found myself in the gorgeous North Carolina mountains.

I was born to be in the mountains, I swear.

Vacations are weird for me. I can either find them incredibly relaxing or somewhat stressful. Last time I left home, I went to my college orientation and spent most of the time with anxiety in my chest and butterflies attacking my stomach lining.

So far, this trip has been a bit of both. First, we couldn't into the cabin we were renting, then we spent a full day floating down the Nolichucky River on a raft. Today, my arms are on fire because sunscreen doesn't work and I spent all of yesterday on a raft, but I've been knitting on the porch all day today. I can't decide.

But, with a mention of knitting comes the meat of this post.

I think I might reblock it when I get home to fix the weird edges.

I promised a finished Aeolian and a pretty dress, but I didn't bring the dress with me, so you'll just have to put up with those completely stunning random trees in the background.

I used to slander lace knitting for being difficult, but I've discovered my folly and have now sworn myself to the Cult of Lace. My upcoming project is Liz Abinante's lovely Travelling Woman, which I fully intend to begin as soon as I get home. I finally decided on the yarn I'll be using: Knit Picks' Shadow Lace Yarn, in a colorway that will be revealed in time. I haven't decided which size I'm making, but I'm leaning toward extra-large. 

In the mean-time, I brought my ball winder on vacation, which I maintain is not weird because I wasn't ever on a plane. Bringing extraneous knitting equipment is only weird if you have to explain it to a TSA agent.

The funny thing is, I remembered to bring my ball winder, but I forgot to bring my tapestry needle and my t-pins, which would both have been much more useful. Still, I can finish the pieces of the tunic and stitch them all together in a week.