Note To Self

Do not machine dry a knitted garment made from Knit Picks CotLin with any other knitted garments. How do I know this? I washed my red CotLin Henley Perfected together with my blue Tubey sweater made with KP Swish Worsted and two pairs of socks made from KP Stroll. They washed up just fine, but came out of the dryer as if I'd washed my CotLin garment for the first time. That CotLin REALLY, REALLY sheds! My lint screen was heavily coated. Normally, I wash the CotLin top by itself. But now that I have a humongous bottle of Kookaburra, I decided to do a load of handknitted items. Never, ever again will I be drying that CotLin top with other clothes, especially knitted ones. It took about 90 minutes to get all the embedded lint and fuzz off using a combination of a used dryer sheet, a disposable razor, and my lint shaver. Whew! It wears me out just thinking of it...

I wish I had pics to show because I've definitely been knitting. Since I last posted, I finished my bluish-green Knotty or Knice socks and used the leftovers to make Marie a matching pair. Hers were slightly different though in that I knit hers cuff down, did a garter-edge heel, and did a round toe to finish. As for my sportweight grey alpaca Evenstar Mitts, I'm just finishing the afterthought thumb and will be starting the 2nd mitt soon. I keep forgetting about my purple drapeneck cotton top but hope to return to that at some point. Oh, I also started a longsleeve green Vestee for Ian.

My favorite online language learning site Babbel is no longer free. But, I liked it so much that I decided to sign up for 3 months with 3 months free since I'm a longtime member. However, once my 6 months is up, that'll be the end :-( S0, I'll have to rely on sites like busuu.com and livemocha.com to keep the language learning alive. On Babbel, I've worked up to over 2500 vocab items. Along with that, I like to casually read my old Italian grammar review textbook from college to supplement the vocabulary building.

Have you noticed that there's no mention of me running since September when the weather got cold? Not a coincidence, unfortunately. I don't really like running in any season but summer up here in Ohio. I never had to worry about running on ice or snow in the dark when living in North Carolina. However, I'm mentally ready to start up yet again. I need it. Can't wait either because I miss how good I feel when exercising regularly. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back down to my healthy range of 125-130 pounds. I haven't seen that range since before kids. I think I was about 130 when I was in prime shape from being in both marching band and running. The biggest difference between now and then, other than having all the time, freedom, and opportunity in the world to workout, is that I'm really going to have to watch my caloric intake this time around. Being 36, I can't only eat healthy anymore; I also need to eat smaller portions. I love food, so eating often is easy, but reducing portions will be tough for me. That's the key, though. When I worked out really hard for 6 months nearly 2 years ago and then when I ran in August and September of this year, I didn't pay attention to portion size, and guess what? I didn't lose a single pound. Back in my twenties, if I'd been working out like that, I would've dropped pounds easily. Not anymore. Just gotta accept that my metabolism isn't what it once was.

Beauregard Bear and His New Hoodie

Gosh, not having an operable digital camera has really affected my blogging frequency! I have pics today, but they're from Jared's cell, so not the best. However, since I have something to show, I thought I'd post :-)

Last Wednesday, my daughter's preschool teacher handed her a tote bag with a teddy bear and journal in it and told her that she was to take care of "Beauregard" for two days until her next day of preschool. When we arrived home, Marie asked me if I could knit something for Beau. So, I took his measurements and some scrap KP Andean Silk yarn and made him a little hoodie. This was a fun project because I got to make something from scratch and try out top-down short row sleeves.

Details:
I CO and did 1x1 ribbing at Beau's tummy. After working stockinette ITR up to almost his underarms, I did some decreases at the sides since his chest was smaller. For the armholes, I placed 4 sts on holders on each side. Next I began shaping the armholes at the front and began the front opening. Using kfb at every front opening sts, I separated every other stitch and placed them on two needles, one in front of the other. Then I worked each front side separately, shaping the armhole and keeping the opening edge in seed stitch (i.e. moss stitch, UK). The back was shaped the same way, and I added one set of short rows below the neck so that the neck would be higher and help the hood sit better against the neck. For the hood I kept all the stitches I already had OTN, picked up a few more at the sides of the neck, and did kfb increases in every stitch (on the next row) except the seed stitch border. After that I still had to do 4 more evenly spaced increases so that my stitch total was somewhere near what I had earlier at the hips. I used a three-needle BO to finish the hood and also when joining the shoulders.

The next part was something I'd never tried until now: top-down short row sleeves! I used US4 dpns (3 sizes smaller than the US7's I used elsewhere) to pick up stitches around the armhole, making sure to use at ratio of 3:4 for horizontal/vertical areas and a 1:1 ratio elsewhere. Leaving the bottom armhole sts that were on holders alone, I took the top 4 picked-up center shoulder stitches and worked short rows back and forth, wrapping one more stitch each time at each end from the picked up armholes stitches. This meant working a wrapped stitch and then wrapping the next new armhole stitch before turning. When I ran out of stitches to wrap on the RS, I continued across the 4 held armhole stitches (picking up the last wrap when I came around to it) and finished the sleeves ITR with a new color. They (the sleeves) are not perfect and they don't match since I ran out of green, but they sure were fun to do! In retrospect, I need to figure out a better way to hold all the picked up armhole stitches because here's what I had: 4 armhole sts on a holder, 2 dpns at the sides, and 2 circulars at the top. Maybe I could've done each sleeve entirely on 2 circs with no dpns? Hopefully, there exists a simpler way of doing this method of sleeves specifically concerning needle placement, and I just haven't discovered it yet!

Other knitting news:
Hopefully, I'll remember to take and upload pics of Jared's finished black lattice stitch socks and of my new WIP Evenstar Mitts. I'm just about finished with my tidepool heather Knotty or Knice socks. I modified the toe and heel a bit, so I'll be blogging about that soon. The new Twist Collective is out and fabulous as usual. I've already faved the patterns I like on Ravelry. Hopefully the next IK preview will be out soon since subscribers will be receiving their new issues soon. The cover jacket looks really nice!

Socks, Ice Cream Cake, and Twilight In Italiano

The black socks are done and just in time for Jared's birthday yesterday! I'd share pics, but our camera is broken. I didn't waste time casting on for a new pair of socks with Knit Picks Stroll in tidepool heather ;-)

For Jared's birthday, my mad scientist ways paid off in the form of a decadent homemade ice cream cake. The layers, from bottom to top: chocolate-covered grahams, raspberry sherbet, hot fudge, Reese Cups, chocolate ice cream, chocolate Coolwhip, and chocolate sprinkles. I wasn't too sure about how the Reese cups would taste in combination with the other ingredients, but I was pleasantly surprised. Jared, aka "Mr. Picky," was certain that I must've followed a recipe and was therefore impressed with my effort. The only part I took from a recipe was the base of chocolate-covered grahams and raspberry sherbet. Success! ...and many days of ice cream cake.

Lately, I've really been having fun reading a few Italian fansites for the Twilight Saga. It's so cool! I'm constantly learn a combination of formal and informal Italian via vocabulary and idioms used for pop culture, music, and movie-related topics. I'd checked out some Italian knitting sites and blogs, but reading the Twilight fansites are more fun to me.

Speaking of Italian and Twilight, I recently noticed the word for werewolf, thanks to the upcoming Twilight movie New Moon: licantropo. When I saw this, I immediately thought of the movie Underworld and the characters called Lycans. Who knew?! I didn't realize that the word Lycan used in that movie wasn't made up. Hmm, it must have Latin origins...

My quest to intuitively learn and not memorize F2L algorithms of the Rubik's Cube is going well. You could really separate the algorithms into two categories: those that immediately make sense, and those that take some deeper processing (specifically the ones that flip up the R-face or the F-face 180 degrees). There are a couple that actually lie somewhere in between because the white part of the corner piece gets flipped a new direction and therefore requires a changed approach compared to those algorithms where the white corner piece remains unchanged in relation to its adjacent edge piece.

The kids have been loving The Muppet Show dvds I've been bringing home from the library. Just while typing this post, my daughter asked me to put The Muppet Show on. She also has fallen in love with the Johnny Depp remake of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. I won't tell you how many times she's seen it in the last two days :-)

JSSCO and JSSBO

Well, no new knitting pictures since I'm still working on the same black socks. I still haven't uploaded Ian's birthday pics. But when I do, I'll have to share a couple of them. Gosh, I haven't blogged for a while. I think the rain and change in weather, Marie being in preschool (early mornings), and not having any news about my current knitting project have fueled that.

In knitting news, I finally read about and watched Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off (Knitty link and Cat Bordhi video) and her follow-up video of a complementary cast on, Jeny's Stretchy Slipknot Cast On (her blogpost here). JSSCO and JSSBO are specifically meant for ribbing -- ribbing that really needs superior stretch and can still bounce back. JSSCO and JSSBO not only has great stretch and bounces back, it also creates the hinged edge that you want for ribbing. To me, JSSCO is just like longtail CO except that you're using only one strand of yarn. It's simply a single CO version of longtail! In longtail CO, you're drawing a second strand of yarn (from the index finger) through the thumbloop; whereas on JSSCO, you're drawing the thumbloop yarn itself through the thumbloop: a series of continuous slipknots. Cool! Hey, if Cat Bordhi gushes over something, it must be cool, right?! As a sidenote when speaking of toe-up socks (i.e., closed toe CO, Cat Bordhi says in the article on Knitty: "Judy's Magic Cast-On and Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off are real soulmates."

In non-knitting news, I'm still doing Babbel in italiano, learning how to do the 3x3x3 Rubik's cube faster (see this site, noting that I do the top layer using Steps 4, 5, and 6 of this separate method) and yet still intuitively, and reading (re-reading actually) Twilight. On the last topic, I'm re-reading to differentiate between the book and the movie better. BTW, at a high school marching band contest yesterday afternoon, I heard a band do music from Twilight. It was Bella's Lullaby I believe. Anyway, I'm not looking forward as much to reading New Moon since that's all about Jacob.

BL Starts Tonight! and Restarted My Socks

Season 8 of The Biggest Loser begins tonight at 8:00! I'm excited because the previews look really good. There are always changes and sometimes new themes from season to season. This season focuses on second chances. Sounds like nothing new considering that's what the show is all about, but this season looks really positive. A former contestant returns and there's a contestant there who lost her husband and two kids in a car accident. It looks like the entire group meets together to introduce themselves, and they train with both Bob and Jillian rather than against each other in two separate teams. Can't wait to see it all start tonight!

On the knitting front, I've frogged and restarted Jared's lattice stitch socks since last posting. The unevenness of the stitch pattern from switching back and forth between knitting styles, and forgetting and not being able to see where I was (hello: black yarn) which resulted in errors caused me to start over. In starting over, I discovered that I'd gotten better at casting on 2aat cuff down. Knitting in one style, Continental Combined, has worked well with the purl stitches of the lattice stitch pattern. Something else I changed was to alternate Longtail CO with German Twisted CO (for the purls in my 1x1 rib). The CO edge looks entirely like longtail but will have some extra stretch from the hidden German Twisted CO stitches.

I have to mention the specifics on how I CO 2aat magic loop if it helps anyone else having trouble. I do the method where you CO all of Sock 2 followed by half of Sock 1, then the second half of Sock 1. Instead of pulling out the loop right away after CO all of Sock 2, I wait until I actually get to that sock on the 1st round so that I don't have to stress out over stitches twisting. After transferring Sock 1's stitches to the other side and facing the front side of those transferred stitches and holding the tail and working yarn, I turn the work around so that my left hand is ready to CO the second half of Sock 1 onto the same needle that holds Sock 2's CO stitches. The reason I CO Sock 2 first is so that when I turn my work around to begin the first round, my two working yarn strands coming from my single Ziploc bag aren't twisted in the home/starting position. Waiting to pull the loop out and knowing how to twist the tail and working yarn to CO the second half of Sock 1 made a BIG difference for me (less stress!). The same two principles could be applied to the other method where you CO half of Sock 1 first, CO all of Sock 2, and then finish CO the second half of Sock 1. I'm now seeing the appeal of why knitters might want to CO all stitches for both socks at once and pull out the loop for both so that your home position is in middle between the two socks. :-) You could hold off on pulling out the loop on Sock 2 with this method until you get to that sock on the first round.

Speaking of CO magic loop 2aat, I also read something I want to try for toe-up socks. Toe-up 2aat CO is super easy, but the increases at the beginning of side 2 for magic loopers can look crappy because of the cable separation. Some Ravelers suggested working each toe separately until the toe increases are done, then put both socks on the same needle. Sounds good to me! I'm going to do that on my next pair of toe-ups.

I also wanted to blog about a recent park visit but will wait until next time since this post is already long enough!

100% Bamboo?

Recently I read a thread on Ravelry that was very interesting, especially since I just bought a bamboo blend yarn. The Ravelry thread references a recent FTC Consumer Alert on the fiber content labeling practices of companies who sell clothing, linens, or other textile products. Here's the FTC Business Alert concerning bamboo labeling. These alerts were preceded by the FTC charging four companies with deceptive product labeling and advertising concerning bamboo. As of August 2009, all fabric labels now have to say something like "rayon from bamboo" or "bamboo rayon" rather than just "bamboo" since the majority of bamboo fabric is actually rayon. Also, proof (via testing) must be shown for products labeled as "bamboo" or those claiming to be derived from bamboo.

So what's all the hubbub about? Truth in labeling and possibly misleading "green" claims. Up until the FTC blew the whistle on the four companies, many products labeled as bamboo were in fact rayon derived from bamboo. Is rayon derived from bamboo still considered bamboo? No. Let me quote the FTC: Even when bamboo is the “plant source” used to create rayon, no traits of the original plant are left in the finished product. So, not only could companies sell rayon labeled misleadingly as bamboo. They could also get away with labeling products as bamboo rayon even if they were produced from cellulose resources other than bamboo. Their thinking? If there are no traces of bamboo left in the end product, why not use a cheaper cellulose source? With all the attractive qualities naturally inherent in bamboo, people might want to know if they're in fact buying bamboo or be certain that their bamboo rayon is actually derived from bamboo.

I'm no expert in the least. But from the little I've gleaned, bamboo can be processed mechanically or chemically. One process method that qualifies a fabric to be labeled as bamboo is mechanically crushing the woody parts and retting it with natural enzymes. Since this is the same process that's used for linen, sometimes the resulting fabric is called bamboo linen (or bamboo litrax). Chemical manufacturing processes and technologies other than the viscose process (to make rayon) are appearing which are more eco-friendly (e.g., the lyocell process, the process used to make TENCEL, can be used on bamboo cellulose) and are trying to retain bamboo's natural properties. See here and here for more information on how bamboo fabric is processed.

Truth in labeling and advertising. Are you getting what you think you're paying for? BTW, my bamboo blend yarn is labeled "rayon from bamboo." However, the website lists it simply as bamboo. The yarn is Spa by naturallycaron.com. Well, at least the yarn label is accurate. I found all this bamboo brouhaha interesting since it relates to yarn. I love my Regia Bamboo Jaywalker socks! I've also used SWTC Bamboo which is listed as 100% bamboo, and I have to say that I believe the label because it has a slightly scratchy, linen-like feel to it compared to some other bamboo yarns to which I've been exposed.

Verde: A Final Pic and Lattice Stitch Socks CO

Though it's been finished for weeks now, I finally braided the drawstring cord for my Verde string bag. I think it looks complete now so I thought I'd include a pic here, especially since it contains some new yarn in it (can you see it?)! On Labor Day, I used a gift card at JoAnns to buy some Country and Spa yarn (both by Caron) and some Serenity Sport Weight yarn ( a Deborah Norville line by Premier Yarns). The gears are turning inside my head as I plan exactly how I want to make Marie and Ian hoodies and Ian a pair of soft pajama pants. I browsed patterns on Ravelry last night to help steer me toward which features I want to include in my knits. At the moment, I definitely know that their hoodies will be pullovers, not cardigans. Everytime I make them a cardigan, it almost looks too fancy to wear at the playground. So this time I want a sweatshirt-style hoodie. Oh, and I do want to have either a handwarmer unipocket or two separate pockets on the front for their hands. Stitch patterns, cuff, hem, and neckline details are still on the drawing board for now... Eventually, I'd love to learn how to line my knits, especially hoodies and bags. Wouldn't that be nice to have a fully lined hoodie for chilly fall days or, at the very least, lined pockets for your hoodie?

Originally, I did a very nice tubular CO for Jared's Lattice Stitch Socks. Since you can really see the green and blue jewel tones, I decided to keep this picture. The second socks picture is the newly re-done German Twisted CO. Since that picture, I've finished 1.5" of ribbing and started the lattice stitch leg pattern. My borrowed audiobook of Pride and Prejudice is due tomorrow at the library, so I've been listening to the last of the CDs at night while knitting these socks :-) I'm so glad that I originally read P & P nearly last of all the Austen books because it's so superior to the others. That's saying a lot, too, because the other books are excellent. Each Austen book has a certain draw to it from the storyline. P & P has the best combined qualities of all the other books. ...In my opinion, of course.

While out shopping for yarn, I also went clothes and shoe shopping. Target had a bunch of stuff on clearance, so I grabbed some things for Marie and Ian. At Kohl's I found some Avia trail running shoes that are very comfortable and sturdy and some casual short sleeve tops that were on sale. My old running shoes were cold in the winter here because they only had thin see-through mesh on the toe area. These new shoes are all-season, so yay! Now that I'm equipped with the right shoes, maybe I'll finally make it through the winter here, running, for the first in a long, long time (college maybe, definitely high school). Winters were so mild in Raleigh that I've been a wimp each winter since moving back to Ohio.

Marie starts preschool tomorrow! It's hard to believe that from now on, she'll be in school most of the year. It's only 2.5 hours 3 days a week, but still... wow!