FO: Aidez of Uncertainty

For me, gauge is not a science. I'm apt to knit a swatch and call it "close enough." So when I decided to knit Aidez, I wasn't sure I had enough yarn. I had seven hanks of Wool of the Andes Bulky, and I just wasn't sure. But I went for it.

And it worked.


For a bulky weight sweater, this design has a lightness and an ease. Which is probably why it has 2500+ projects on Ravelry.


The cables are great. I went with a popular modification to the lattice cables, so it was a true lattice.


I knit the sleeves two at a time, but without a stitch marker, so I ended up knitting one sleeve more than another. At one point, I discovered that I had crossed the cable to early, so a repeat was short about 5 inches back. I fudged it. So one arm has a short repeat and a long repeat, while the other stayed nice and even.


The only thing I'm not really happy with is my seaming. I tend to tug on the fronts and it exposes gaps in the side seaming. It doesn't drive me crazy, but I'll be a bit more careful with seamed projects in the future.

This sweater will get a lot of wear. I've worn it twice already and it's only been finished for about a week and a half.  Hooray for successful projects!

Yarn: Reclaimed step by step

Remember my frog pond? Well, it's all been frogged. And then some!

It was really interesting taking apart sweaters, particularly from early on in my knitting career when I had no idea what I was doing. Tying in the ends? That's not how we do things any more. Then again, splicing together yarn results in some enormous hanks of yarn.... Anyway.

Step one: Unweave your ends. Curse your younger self who inexplicably tied the ends to the knitting. Or who split through single ply yarn when weaving.

Step two: Unseam your seams.

Step three: Frog! Wind into a ball. This will create a lot of fiber dust that gets in your nose and makes you sneeze.

Step four: Skein. I used my handy dandy niddy noddy and skeined up all the yarn. This was surprisingly tiring for my arm and shoulder. I tied off the hanks using scraps of sock yarn.


Step five: Soak the skeins.

With a little wool wash.


In a rubbermaid tub. Black and red went first.


Then the blue. It looked like Smurf ramen, frankly.

Step six: Wring out the skeins.Get out that water!

Spot the cat? Wringing out the skeins took a lot of time. Like, a lot of time.


Cat's easier to find on this one.

Step seven: Hang skeins to dry.

Batch #1.


All the yarn. Be annoyed that cat destroyed collapsing fabric box...

Step eight: Wait for skeins to dry. Wait some more. Give it another day.

Step nine: Call it dry enough and retwist all the skeins. Realize that you don't have space to store all this yarn...


Seriously, this is a lot of yarn. There's also a few un-washed balls of reclaimed yarn that I may not bother with processing. We'll see.

The process worked pretty well. Some of the yarn still has a little wave to it, some looks brand new. The red yarn is nicer than it ever has been. It was a lot of work, but I'm glad I did it. Now I need to knit some worsted/aran/bulky weight sweaters to decrease this reclaimed stash!

Piling on the miles

I'm knitting this fabulous sweater, Aidez, out of that bulky weight yarn I wasn't sure what to do with.  On my Rav projects page I'm calling it the Aidez of uncertainty because I don't know if I have enough yarn. It knits up fast though, that's for sure. Faster, if I spent more of my time knitting and less of my time ripping out all the stuff in my enormous frog pond. I've got the back and part of the left front done. I'm also a little worried that it won't be the right size. It looks so small and scrunched together....

The back of Aidez, partially done. This photo is not up to date.But it's pretty, no?

Anyway, I want to tell you about the frogging project, and I'd like to tell you about my long neglected Tiong Bahru, but what I'm going to do is talk about running.

See, I signed up for this thing. It's called Pile on the Miles, and it's organized by Monica of Run Eat Repeat. You sign up, set a mileage goal for the month of November, and can get prizes for commenting and updating your progress.

I set my goal kind of high. Like, really high.

100 miles.

Yeah, I said I would run 100 miles in November. I did the math; it's totally possible on my three day a week schedule. I'm working my way up to a 15 mile long run during the same period, so that helps. And I'll probably do a few miles of walking, too, since I'm going to lay off the elliptical for cross training and just do incline walking. (Incline walking is brutal! I was walking at a 12.5% incline today and I was drenched.)

Oh yeah, my knee has been bugging me. It feels crunchy or something - I don't even know. Sometimes it's fine, sometimes not.  But I'm doing everything I can for it short of actually not using it. I'd been doing elliptical instead of running because of it, but it actually seems to get worse after the elliptical. I guess that plan didn't work. Current plan involves supplements, ice when I need it, and hoping. So we'll see how this goes.

Anyway, I'm kicking this thing off on Thursday morning with a five mile run, and following that up with eleven fine miles on Saturday. Assuming my knee doesn't fall out or something.

Even if you're not a runner and just want some incentive to get out and walk more this month, sign up! There are about 700 people signed up right now, with goals ranging from 20 miles to 200 miles. It's not about being the fastest or the best, it's about giving yourself a challenge and some motivation.

I can do this. So can you.

Rippit, Rippit Good, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Frog Pond.

I switched over my wardrobe from winter to summer (which mostly involves putting away the shorts and pulling out the sweaters - most of it stays the same), and finally had to deal with the problem of my sweaters.

You see, I have about a half dozen handknit sweaters which are... too big. Not too big by a little, but too big by a lot. I don't want to give them to goodwill, so I had to get up the courage and start a frog pond.



In the frog pond we have:

My very first sweater ever. Made of a very wooly wool I bought at a flea market in Wisconsin.


My Wicked cardigan. Knit out of Cascade 220. This is a pattern I would actually knit up again, and very well may.


The Quincy hat, which is not really a good look for me and cashmere is a horrible thing to waste.


The Amelia cardigan, which I like and put a lot of work into, but now that the arms fit, the body is a bit saggy. Made of Cascade Lana d'Oro.


Frosting. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it's too messy for a gift, and too itchy for my poor sensitive skin. Made of Cascade Cloud 9.


These will join my Bulky Mini-Cardi, which got frogged last week. The Arucania Nature Cotton may get a second life...


Narrowly avoiding the frog pond are my Tangled Yoke Cardigan and my Eris cardigan. I don't think the yarn of either will stand up to frogging. Besides, I love my Tangled Yoke. Eris was never really a success, but it is warm. Both will be okay for curling up in around the house.

Letting go is hard, but there will suddenly be a lot more a lot more yarn in my stash.

Expectations v. Reality

*This post has neither photos nor knitting. But I promise the next one will have both!*

So it turns out that posting my weekly exercise schedule on here was actually really really motivating. Here's what I said I would do last week:

Monday - rest
Tuesday - 45-60 minutes of running, with speedwork
Wednesday - weight training (45 minutes)
Thursday - 4-5 miles easy run
Friday - rest or weight training or bootcamp class
Saturday - long run, 6-8 miles
Sunday - weight training, 30 minutes elliptical

And here's what I actually did:


Monday - Rest! No running or gym anyway.
Tuesday - Ran for 4.62 miles/52 minutes. 1.5 miles to the track, 5x200 with 200 rest, 1.5 miles home or so. I have no idea what I'm doing for speedwork. 58 degrees out!
Wednesday - Did my weight training circuit and had time to follow it up with 28 minutes of elliptical (the "fat burner" program on the AMT, mostly because it's programmed to last 28 minutes) at a fairly moderate intensity.
Thursday - Ran 4 miles/46 minutes. It was 30 degrees out. I couldn't feel my thighs.
Friday - Had kind of intended to get to the gym, but with my rest option instead.
Saturday - Air quality was unhealthy, so my run date was cancelled. I went and did weights/elliptical instead. More intensely than Wednesday. Maybe because I saw my trainer there.
Sunday - Air quality was still unhealthy, so I did 7 miles/76.5 minutes on the elliptical. 30 minutes on a regular elliptical, the rest on the AMT (which has a more "run-y" motion).

And here's what I intend to do this week:


Monday - Rest. Already executing that fairly successfully.
Tuesday -45-60 minutes of running, with hill repeats on the only hill in town.
Wednesday - Weight training (45 minutes)
Thursday - 4-5 miles easy run
Friday - Rest or weight training or bootcamp class
Saturday - Long run, 8-10 miles
Sunday - Weight training, 30 minutes elliptical

I realize this is a bit dull. I'll try to think of ways to liven it up in the future.

Sunday Set Up

First things first! An FO. A pair of basic stockinette "movie theatre socks." So called because I knit this kind of sock during movies because I don't have to look at it (I don't do the heels, toes, or ribbing at movies, though).  I had a couple partial balls of this yarn (maybe a Regia?) and went for it. I had to cut the ribbing of the second sock a couple rounds short and use a little bit of a different sock yarn for half the bind off. Nothing remarkable - solidly useful socks. I think, though, that I might start doing afterthought heels for this kind of sock, so the patterning doesn't get quite so wonky.



I'm working on a Tiong Bahru, which is a gorgeous pattern. Unfortunately, I repeatedly miscounted my stitches and ended up 15 short on the first pattern lace row. My trouble? The counts given don't include the border stitches, which I was counting. Sigh. I'm hoping to get back to where I was by next week and I will show you my process for ripping back 3000 stitches when you didn't put in a lifeline...

I also want to start knitting a sweater out of some bulky yarn I have. I bought the kit for the Gallatin sweater a while ago, but find I don't care for the sweater as much as I did a year ago.

I'd planned to do the owl pattern in the grey colorway.

 I have about 1000 yards of the main color, which ought to be enough for a sweater. Plus 500 yards of each of the coordinating colors. But I don't know what pattern to knit - I would be very glad to take suggestions.

Switching modes now, from knitting to fitness stuff. I met with my trainer on Wednesday, and she gave me a new workout routine which is pretty intense. I've had about a month and a half of sort of fumbling as far as fitness and training is concerned (vacation directly into 3-4 weeks of insanity at work (pretty much have maxed out my accumulation of comp-time)), so a reset was sorely needed. And a little accountability never hurts. So this is my plan for the week:

Monday - rest
Tuesday - 45-60 minutes of running, with speedwork
Wednesday - weight training (45 minutes)
Thursday - 4-5 miles easy run
Friday - rest or weight training or bootcamp class
Saturday - long run, 6-8 miles
Sunday - weight training, 30 minutes elliptical

I have goals, so sticking to that plan, and also to a reasonable eating plan, will help me reach them. Not to mention, this weights routine will help me get stronger. I like being able to impress people with my recently developed ability to lift heavy things. Onward!

FO super post!

I've been busy!  And lazy! Let's just cut to the photos of knitted things, okay?

Corrina Ferguson's Berlioz



A super cute shawlette knit out of Shalimar Yarns Breathless. Like the pattern, like the yarn, like the results!

Ribbelmuster Socks


These got a blue ribbon at the fair!  Knit of Handmaiden Casbah Sock (luscious). I love swirly sock patterns.

Corrina Ferguson's Minerva's Tower socks



Knit from Madelinetosh Tosh Sock. A purple approaching black. I love these socks. They look super complicated, but the pattern is easy to remember. But I would suggest using a bobby pin to help with the cables.

Cecily Glowik MacDonald's Goodale cardigan




Knit from Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, I made a couple small changes to the pattern. First, I added a few inches to the body. Second, I added elbow length sleeves. I love how wearable this cardigan turned out.  Also, I adore pockets.

BONUS!  County Fair Pictures!




The aforementioned Ribbelmuster socks with their blue ribbon. My Acer Cardigan with its blue ribbon (despite not having a top button or having been well blocked (had to bring them to the fair three days earlier than I thought I had to...)). And my Evenstar shawl with its blue ribbon and Superintendent's Choice rosette. Very exciting.

And that's the knitting that's fit to share. Onward, ho!