Um. Hey there.

It's been about a year soince I posted here.

It totally isn't my fault.

...okay, no, it is. My blog, my own self-imposed posting schedule, my ideas, and my mental inertia. I stopped posting for a bit because I was having physical issues, and never really started again.

Anyway. Lemme 'splain. No, there is too much, lemme sum up:

* still alive

* still have way too much yarn

* still trying to find ways of satisfying my crafting need without having a robot body

* have new weapons to that end, which I will document in an upcoming post

* plan on posting here again, but probably once a week instead of trying for every weekday

Zoink.

Saga of the Looms, part zero

(I am, for the record, still alive. Still having problems with my shoulder and elbow, to the point where knitting for more than two rows is a Very Bad Idea, and the combination of pain and painkillers makes my head a very fun place ... where nothing productive gets accomplished. Like, say, writing blog posts.)

#

When I first learned to knit ... well, really, I don't quite remember learning to knit. I am fairly sure my sister taught me (unless I am conflating knitting with cross-stitch), and based on later instincts I am fairly sure I was taught English style (except I also vaguely recall a period in learning where my probably-my-sister teacher was confused because I was mirroring what she did, and I don't know if I was doing full mirror knitting or if I was doing lefty Continental) ... and then there was the thing where I stopped knitting for a while and then had to re-teach myself ...

Er. Regardless.

When I first learned to knit (allowing exception for the variability of memory), it was the only way I thought possible to knit. Two sticks, string, work moving from the left needle to the right needle, yarn held in right hand and thrown to make stitches. There was one way to cast on (longtail, for those curious) and one way to cast off (basic knit) and two ways to increase (yarnover if you wanted a hole and kfb otherwise) and two ways to decrease (k2tog and p2tog), and that was it.

That was The Way To Knit, and naturally nothing else counted as proper knitting. Anything else was Doing It Wrong.

I have since learned a lot -- possibly more than I needed to! -- about different methods of knitting. Right-handed vs left-handed, English vs Continental, Eastern mount vs Western mount^†, combined knitting, twisted stitches, Norwegian purling and other purl variants, different ways of doing yarnover, different ways to increase, different ways to decrease, different ways to cast on and cast off...

(Don't worry. There won't be a test on any of this.)

But for all my horizon-expanding, for all my time spent on ravelry (login required) and knittinghelp (login only required for premium content and forum posting), one thing remained a constant: knitting involved two sticks and a string.

Okay, yes, sometimes there were more than two sticks (cable needles, at first, and then four- or five-set DPNs for knitting in the round, or two circulars), and yarn is not really string, but at any one time it came down two two sticks and a string. And you used the sticks to make (interlocking) loops in the string, and you ended up with knitted fabric.

Two sticks and a string.

And then I started having trouble knitting. It wasn't the first mobility issue I'd had -- it wasn't even the first mobility issue to affect my knitting -- but before, I could adapt slightly and still use the same basic knitting method.

And a friend said, hey, I have these looms, and I don't use them, and I thought they might be useful to you -- interested?

I, of course, said yes, even though I hadn't the foggiest idea what a loom was.

And even though it took me a while to grok how the whole thing worked?

Knitting was, suddenly, no longer two sticks and a string.





† stitch mount, that is; although I will admit to being sorely tempted to make a World of Warcraft joke about Darnassian nightsabers (western mount) vs Ironforge rams (eastern mount). But, er, it's probably only funny if you're on painkillers...

not dead yet

Just a quick note that neither I nor this blog are dead. I've been taking it easy this week because of my hand, but I plan to be back next week with the multi-part Saga of the Looms.

Where is my robot body?

... the pinky side of my right hand is Not Happy At All today. Not sure if it's a tendon thing or a nerve thing or what, but it is a pain thing.

Knitting, which I took along to do while waiting in the lobby of my dentist's office? Hurts.

Using my mouse? Hurts.

Typing? ...doesn't hurt quite as much, but my right hand is the one that does the weird gymnastics, so I should probably take it easy.

Which means no actual informative blog post today.

It also means no knitting.

(How am I going to survive...?)

Scared of blocking

...mainly because I can't do it myself.

For those unfamiliar with the term, blocking is basically the treatment of a finished object -- washing (gently, depending on the material!) and shaping. For some items, this just evens out the stitches a bit, makes it look a little more polished, sharpens some stitch definitions.

For some things, like lace? Blocking can turn something that looks like a heap of soggy ramen noodles into a gorgeous work of art. (I am not joking about the ramen noodle thing. Lace looks like crap until you block it.)

If you have a ravelry login, and have not perused the "Blocking: Before and After" thread, I recommend you do so. Be warned that you can lose a lot of time on it. And your favorites and/or queue list may grow.

With that said, I have not blocked a single thing ever. Before I found rav, I didn't even know what blocking was, and I also didn't really do a lot of lace. And my post-rav projects have been the sort that could theoretically be polished by blocking but don't really need it.

But I have things that I want to make that kind of require blocking. Patterns with lace, or hats that need to be a specific shape, or colorwork (yes, blocking helps colorwork too), or ... you know. Things.

And I'm terrified about getting to the blocking stage.

Some of the problem is that I don't have a whole lot of space -- being in a wheelchair means it isn't even the slightest bit feasible to block on the floor; and my bed is a) small, b) not very flat, and c) an air mattress.

Some of the problem is that I don't have the materials. A lot of people have foam pads (particularly the jigsaw-puzzle sort that can be disassembled into smaller pieces) and rustproof T-pins and blocking wires. I don't have any of that.

Some of the problem is that it's a "never done it before" thing, and that always makes me a bit nervous, even when -- as in this case -- I have plenty of tutorials and examples to work from.

And some of the problem is that I can't do it myself. And yes, I do have PAs that can do what I tell them, but none of them are knitters and anyway I'm not really a forceful enough personality to tell people how to do something that I don't know how to do except in theory.

I'm going to have to figure some of this out. I want to. But there are too many things I need to figure out before I can block anything, and having that many obstacles makes it kind of ... scary.

Spring cleaning!

I have decided that April will be stash month: go through my stash, remind myself of what I have, get rid of things I won't be using.

Who knows, maybe I'll even find some of my missing needles :D

As with anything, of course, I will be needing assistance doing this, so it isn't just a matter of settling myself down and doing it.

There is a part of my brain that wants to take pictures of everything and put it all into rav so I can do virtual stash-diving later. But I haven't even gotten around to documenting everything I have in even a brief format...

How I knit, redux

I noticed, while knitting yesterday, that my current default grip actually involves holding both needles about halfway down. (The exception is for first stitches, which involve a bit of convoluted juggling.) The throwing part of making the stitch involves not only letting go of the needle, but using the left needle to kind of lever the work back so that the needle tips move in relation to my hand, rather than vice versa. And if any left-hand manipulation of stitches is required, I do the same levering motion.

Which is why I know that I can knit with 5mm bamboo needles and grabby wool ... and I'm not sure it works with any other combination of materials. Because if I let go of a needle and it slides out of the stitches? Or if I try to lever the whole shebang and it just slides the stitches around without moving the needles?

...yeah.

It's also why I am wary of ordering knitting sheaths -- I move my needles around! -- or things like http://knittingaid.com/ -- especially since the latter I would probably have to use at a weird angle (with the needles pointing up, maybe) in order to reach it, and I don't know that it functions that way.

What I really need is, like...

...well, a properly working body would be nice.

But aside from that? I really don't know.

Scarf update

More pictures of the Scarf of Awesome are up on the project page (ravelry login required). The most recent picture is this:



I am so very much in love with this yarn. (Ella Rae Jaspe Wool, colorway 10.) I can't quite explain why. Part of it is just the relief of working with worsted weight yarn on 5mm needles, after trying to wrangle sock-weight yarn on 2mm needles. Part of it is the glorious poofiness -- it seems to be fairly loosely spun, which will probably mean it will pill like crazy but I don't even care.

I have even acquired a source for more so that I can make a matching hat and wristwarmers.

Not that I am a dork or anything.