Sock it to me

More pictures!

Monkey socks, in progress. My own hand-dyed yarn. It's hard to see the stitch pattern in this picture - shoulda stretched the fabric a bit to give it some definition - but it's there, honest.


And just to show you that I do occasionally finish things, rotten hands or not, my lace girly girl socks. These were actually done awhile ago, I was just too disgusted with our old camera to take a picture. This is my Standard Sock Recipe No. 1 with ridged feather and fan stitch.

Slow Bo'

Slow Bohus progress so far. My worthless hands are just, well, worthless. RSI is a gift that keeps on giving, fer sure.

But isn't it wonderful??? Those Swedish ladies sure knew how to design a sweater. Incredible to think that Bohus garments were designed back in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, and yet are so utterly timeless they are as wearable now as they were sixty or seventy years ago.

It's such a pleasure to knit this, at least it's a pleasure when my hands aren't killing me. The yarn is wonderful, the colors are divine, the pattern is very clear, and amazingly enough the knitting is not difficult in most places, at least if you have some understanding of the basics of stranded colorwork. I wouldn't recommend this particular Bohus (the Forest Darkness pattern) as a first-colorwork project, 'cause it does get a little tricky in places - several rows require you to work with three colors, which is a bit much to ask of a beginner - but I know that some Bohus patterns call for only two colors per row, which makes life easier.

It does take patience. An entire sweater on size 1 needles is not for the faint of heart. But gracious, it will be worth it in the end, doncha think?

Other news: A week ago I took some samples of my handpainted sock yarn by Not Just Yarn in Brattleboro, and showed them to Susan the owner, thinking she might be interested in carrying them in her store. She bought 10 skeins right there on the spot, which so astonished me I could barely think straight.

So, day before yesterday, I get a call from Susan. Me being somewhat insecure, I immediately assume she's regretting spending good money on my little bits of string, and wants a refund.

Here's how the conversation really went:

Me: So what's up?

Her: I need to order some more yarn. The skeins from the first order are all gone.

Me: You're kidding.

Her: No, they're all sold.

Me: You're kidding.

Her: Can I get 10 more?

Me: (So flabbergasted I can barely speak) You're kidding.

To say I was slightly unprepared for such a request would be an understatement. My notion was that she'd sell three or four, maybe in a month she'd call and order a few more - you know, a leisurely sort of thing. Plenty of time to order more base yarn, plenty of time to futz and fiddle and procrastinate... Wrong.

So what we have in the bowl is the very last of my hand-paint, all of which is going to Susan this afternoon. (That, btw, is an extremely crappy photo. It makes all the colors look terribly washed out and dull, when they're really quite pretty.)

I am now completely out of base yarn, at least until my very hastily ordered next shipment comes in. Which I hope will be very very soon, 'cause if Susan keeps selling at this rate I really needed it yesterday. Unfortunately my supplier takes a somewhat relaxed approach to shipping. New base yarn might show up next week, or next month. Sigh.

At least I have something new and interesting to fret about.

Disappearing pictures!

What the hell??? I posted a picture yesterday, of Frank running in his race. Where on earth did it go? And why? What mysterious confluence of events would cause a photo that was formerly appearing just as it should, just where it should, to go poof and vanish into the thin and malodorous cyberspace air? I swear, anyone who can explain this to me will be eligible for a fabulous prize. (OK, only fabulous if you're into string and such, but still. A prize is a prize.)

Well. (If you imagine I'm saying that in a quite huffy tone of voice, you would be right.)

I have to say, posting pictures on this blogbeast is a pain in the rear. I'm not sure if it's the kludgy blog itself or whether it's a bandwidth issue, but it takes forever and often as not once I finally get something uploaded, it disappears. Grrrr.

Does anyone else, when dealing with blog woes, catch the faintest whiff of sulphur?

Anyway. I posted the Frank pic again. Isn't he cute? If he's not here when you look at this entry, it's not my fault.

In other news, well, hell, sistahs, there really isn't any. I managed two rows on the
Bohus today before my hands finked out. I really just need to put it aside for a couple of days.

Started a pair of Monkey socks last night - which, btw, is one of the most fun sock patterns I've ever come across. Cookie A is, in my most humble opinion, the best sock pattern designer out there. It's one of my small ambitions to track down every sock pattern the woman has ever written and stash them away, just in case they ever go out of print.

Monkey makes a decent travelling sock - it's an easily memorized pattern. But I'm torn about what to do for my next home socks. Twisted Flower, maybe. I love the German Stockings, too. So many wonderful socks, so little time to knit before I lose all sensation in my arms... Sigh...

This truly sucks

Right now, everything from the elbows on down aches.

This is good.

At least I can feel something. Hurting is better than losing all sensation in my hands, which is what is happening when I knit for much more than 10 minutes at a time. Kinda hard to get a decent stitch rythym going when you can't feel the needles. It's so freakin' frustrating.

But, I have taken the drastic step of joining a gym. I know (from many unfortunate years of experience with this stinking thing) that if I a) build up some muscle in my back, shoulders and arms, and b) lose a good amount of the excess weight I'm carting around, that some of this will resolve itself. That's the easy part. The hard part is that I really just need to put down the damned needles for a couple of weeks.

Yeah, right. Might as well try to take away a coke whore's little sniffing spoon. Sigh.

In other news, brace yourselves, ladies, the end of the world must be near - Frank decided to learn to knit. The astonishment I feel over this development is so extreme it has somewhat distracted me from the exasperation of my rotten hands.

For those of you who haven't met Frank, to the left is my favorite picture of him. I've been teaching him the basics, and he's doing great! Dug out a simple reversible cable scarf pattern I thought he'd like, gave him some very nice Lorna's Laces worsted weight (in manly camo colors), handed over my favorite pair of nice stout No. 10 straights, and set him to work.

I think he's almost - not completely, but almost - past the truly horrible initial part of learning to knit. Remember that part? The part where every single stitch is a miserable, tense struggle? Where absolutely everything feels awkward and stupid and wrong? The part where you make a gazillion mistakes and don't know how to find 'em, let alone fix 'em? He's only nine or ten rows into his scarf and already he's "getting it." If he keeps after it I think he's going to be a good knitter.

Actually, if he keeps after it, he'll probably wind up being better than me. This is one of the perils of marrying a brilliant man. I've never seen him do anything poorly.

We motored up to Arlington Saturday, where he ran in a 12-k race and came in third in his age group. Smart, multitalented, easy on the eyes, and now he knits. How I got this lucky is a great mystery.

We got a new digital camera a couple of days ago, which does not cast an annoying dark shadow over the subject matter every time the flash is used, so I should be able to more consistently post pics of my work in progress. My super secret goal for the day is to bag a photo of Frank knitting, so y'all know I'm not just making this all up. A close-up of the scarf in progress is also in the game plan.

The Bohus yoke needs a picture, too. It's so frickin' gorgeous. But, I have made such slow progress because of my stupid RSI that it might just be too depressing to post. Sigh.

Cripes

Once upon a time, many years ago, I had a different life.

In that life, I was a journalist. An editor, in fact, working for one of the largest, most respected newspapers in the country. It was interesting, and challenging, and exciting, and very very stressful.

About five years ago, I retired from that life, and moved onto this one. However, a few remnants of that life followed me, including a rollicking good case of repetitive stress injury.

It's one of those things that will never go away entirely, at least not without without surgery. And the surgery for my type of RSI is not an exact science - the chances that they'd make things worse not better run around 30%, which to me seems like a poor bargain. Anyway, now that I'm not spending 10 hours a day typing, most of the time it's not troublesome.

Sometimes it is, and now is one of those times.

No knitting for me, at least not much. No spinning, either.

All is OK, though. I'm fooling around with some natural dyeing, which is fun in a serendipitous mad scientist sort of way. It's not knitting, but it's enough of a fiber fix to keep me from seeing giant spiders on the walls.

Sigh.

Bohus, o Bohus - how I love thee

Telling you I adore the Bohus beyond reason and logic may be understating the case.

Have you ever had a knitting experience you secretly wished would last forever? That is so satisfying that it makes you want to forsake all other knitting? I have never once in my entire knitterly career made the same garment twice (with the exception of Standard Sock Pattern No. 1 and its many variants) but this Bohus... I would do it all over again, and again and again and again.

There is something about it that is so completely gratifying it almost hurts. Is it the color arrangement, so subtle yet vibrant it looks more like liquid than yarn? Is it the tiny little purl stitches? They amuse me to a degree that's truly embarassing. Is it the yarn itself, soft as a cloud and yet not shedding even a tinch? I don't know, and I don't care. True love defies logic.

If I had loads of money I'd be emailing Solveig in Sweden right now, ordering a kit in every colorway she has. Actually, if I had loads of money I'd order half a dozen each, just so I'd have a good solid stash tucked away for a rainy day. Plus extra skeins, of course, so I could make matching mittens and scarves and tams. I don't even wear tams, but that is a minor issue. We need not speak of it.

I mean, really, what if all the sheep and bunnies in the world suddenly go bald and I'm left without the means of obtaining another kit, ever? What if the Swedes declare war? You know how ferocious they can be. No kits then, bubba. It's all quite worrisome.

Of course I haven't yet reached the miles ... and miles ... and miles of plain green stockinette. Perhaps my ardor will fade after eighteen gazillion rows of mindlessness.

But I think not.

Quick hits

1. The "real" Bohus is in play. I'm about two inches into the colorwork, and so far I love it beyond all reason. The colors are so vibrant they look like they're backlit. And the yarn is sooooo wonderfully soft. I knit for a bit, then stop to pet it like a small fuzzy animal.

Progress is thus slow, but that's OK. Knitting pleasure of this purity must be savored.

2. Still slogging away on spinning up the Ashland Bay top. Two pounds takes awhile. Sigh.

3. Dyed a dozen skeins of sock yarn. It all came out really well, which is unusual. Generally at least one skein turns out not according to plan. This time, it's all good, baby. Hope to get pics onto Etsy within a day or so, and will post some pics here too.

4. Fussing around with blending some fawn Shetland with chocolate Angora from my bunny. Spun a test swatch at more or less fingering weight. So far, I am well pleased. At the moment I'm considering using this blend for the body of the handspun Bohus, adding silk only to the yoke.

Or, I could use only Shetland and colored Angora, no silk at all. And no dye. A Bohus done in all natural shades of wool and bunny is an alluring concept.

More research is needed.