September 2006 Archives

So it's been over a week since I e-mailed KnitPicks and I haven't yet heard from them. I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and give them a call. After looking up my account, I was promised a new cable, no questions asked. I figured they would, and I'm glad to report that they still have great customer service. Don't know what happened to my e-mail though. I should have it, and some Bare Swish by the end of the week.

As I mentioned previously, I am participating in a knit-along. Since I am not really knitting the sweater as intended, I am able to experiment a bit. The topic came up on the KAL list that one woman was seeing strange results on her twisted stitches, and suspected that it had to do with the fact that she's knitting in the combination style.

In combo knitting, you wrap your knits just like western knitting, but when purling, you wrap the stitches in the opposite direction, so the legs fall to the back of the needle. When I knit a large amount of stockinette, I really prefer combo knitting because I think my knitting looks so nice and even with no signs of rowing-out. But one thing that I have noticed is that in addition to the stitches being placed differently in combo knitting, the stitches also look different after they've been purled. Everything is recovered once it's off the needle, but while it's on the needle, I think it looks weird.

Trying to explain it in words isn't easy, so I offered to take some photos. Feel free to offer any commentary you have.

This is an example of combo knitting, after completing a knit row, as seen from above, looking down at the needle. Looks normal, right?

Here is an example of Combo Knitting after completing a purl row. See how the stitches are seated opposite to western knitting? See how the yarn seems un-twisted, compared to the after-knit shot?

Here's a picture after knitting halfway across the last purl row, so you can see the two together. Knit stitches look normal, purled look unfurled. The bottom stitches are the knitted ones, the top stitches were purled.

Here you can see that the result looks normal, the stitches look great after all is said and done.

For info about combination knitting, see:
or

This is Knitpicks Swish Superwash in Ballerina on size 3.5mm needles. It comes out at 30 st over 5 3/8 inches. That's about 5.6 stitches per inch. Not exactly how Jade Starmore intended, but I am swatching for what I would call a sweater inspired by her beautiful Beadwork. I only have the child's size pattern, from her book A Collector's Item. There is an adult pattern out there in Interweave's Winter 99/00 issue, but I am sure it's not in my size, so I would still have to do the math. I am thinking of using this yarn (but probably not this color) for a baby sweater, since it's superwash but still wool. It's wonderfully soft yarn, and I may buy some more for a sweater for me, so I don't have to be so dainty with my sweaters. If you know me, you know I'm not dainty. ;/

Here's another swatch. I watched Annie Modesitt on Knitty Gritty. She did a Corset T and it was really cute. I read the pattern and it specified a yarn that she calls Worsted Weight, but the website for the yarn calls DK. I emailed for clarification, but while I was waiting for a reply, I got out this Knitpicks Merino Style and started swatching. The top of the swatch was made up in my head, I forgot to print the pattern and didn't feel like booting up to look it up, so I just started making stuff up, some double decreases and increases over some garter stitch and k2p2 rib. I loved the look so ordered a bag of Merino Style in Iris, the same color I used for the obi of my Kyoto sweater. Then I heard back from Annie that the yarn was definitely worsted weight. So, I'll once again have to do some math. Whatever. I love this yarn, so I don't mind.

But here's the problem. I have finally started to do something about my weight and am going to Weight Watchers. So far, it's working! I am down 13 pounds so far, and plan to keep going. I won't tell you how much, but it's a lot. So I am thinking about avoiding knitting things that will end up being too big when I am done. This one is rib all over, so might work for a while but eventually, if all goes well, it won't fit. Do I knit it anyway, and then frog it and reknit it again in a year or so? (The idea of re-knitting Kyoto kills me, but I will one day, and have plenty of yarn left over!)

Meanwhile, I hope to pick up some linen for the shawl from Big Girl Knits this weekend, for after my xmas knitting and other ideas.

Saturday was a day of oops for me. I made this great mix of music for walking, in the range of 120-130 BPM so I can keep a good pace. I went for a walk with my huz and we were walking at a good clip and suddenly my iPod starts stuttering and gets stuck. I tried to turn it off, but no go. Then suddenly it worked again, about an hour later! As I am walking back to the car, I feel it starting to drop, and discover this. The strap had become unstitched from the case I was using. I'm glad I felt it dropping, or I would have been really bummed!

So when I got home, I started looking on line for a new case, maybe a sturdier one or an armband one. But my iPod is a Gen 3, so it's pretty heavy and old, so there aren't many choices left out there. I think it might be too heavy for an arm band. So I decided to knit one for myself. I cast on, and after a while I decided I didn't like what I started with, and went to pull the needle out so I could frog and look what happened! This is a KnitPicks Options needle and the cable came right out of the coupling. I am going to email them and see if they will replace it, since I've only had it for a month. Luckily, I could switch out the other cable and so I was able to continue.

So here's what I came up with. It started with about a mile of I-cord, which I then used to pick up stitches and knit the body in the round while the I-cord wraps around the whole thing. I picked up a stitch of I-cord in each of the four "corners" of the bag and knit it together (k2tog or ssk, as appropriate) until the bag was long enough to hold my iPod. No, I didn't knit all that I-cord myself. I used my handy-dandy Embellish-Knit! which works great with yarns DK or smaller. Once you read the directions. ;/

When it was all done, I thought it was too loosey-goosey, so before binding off, I got my handy seed stitcher tool (for machine knitters) and dropped whole columns of stitches, changing it to a mostly k2p2 rib all around. I tried it on again and liked it much better. I bound off one side and began knitting the flap back and forth, with an I-cord edging on each side. The flap was a little narrow, so I cast on 5 stitches in the middle of the row, creating a hole that my remote cord or headphones would fit through.

I toyed with double knitting the pocket on the flap, but decided that I didn't want to try doing that for the first time with a single, solid color yarn. It would be too easy to mess it up. Instead, I knitted down the flap, decreased a few stitches to give it a little curve, then did a row of purls as a turning ridge. Then I knitted the pocket side of the flap, with an inch of k1p1 ribbing at the last inch, and bound off.

The I-cord edging on the flap had a nice 2 st purl dip which was perfect for sewing up the edges of the pocket to the flap, which were the only seams for the whole thing! I wove in my ends, and here is the result. What do you think? I made it long enough to fit over my neck and under my arm so it will be out of the way when walking. Since it's knit, it will have a little stretch to it and the weight of the iPod will hold it down while I walk. When it's not being used, the pocket will hold the remote and headphones. When it's being used, the pocket could hold my car key.

It's knit with under one skein of Louet Sales Opal Gems Merino on a size 3.5mm needle. Took about 4 hours to knit, frog, knit some more, frog some more, and finally finish.

On Friday, when my colleagues asked if I was doing anything this weekend, I told them I was going to see Bill Maher at the Grove in Anaheim. I was much looking forward to it, since my husband and I don't really go out at night except for dinner, so this was going to be a nice night out.

So, Sunday night rolls around and we are sitting down to dinner and arguing because my husband wants to add garlic to the soup I made him, and I am requesting that he please taste it before making adjustments and then we are silently glaring and eating and watching Carlos Mencia on TV. My husband says, oh, I hope his whole routine isn't just the show, because we've got tickets to see Carlos Mencia in a few weeks, and are really looking forward to that show too.

Suddenly we realize that we are sitting at the dinner table when we should be in Anaheim! Holy crap! We look at the clock and each other and think, oh, we'll never make it, yes we can, go get dressed, what should I wear, we'll never make it, there will be an opening act, what if their isn't, where are the seats, I would hate to be late if the seats are really good we'll get heckled, I don't know I've never been there before what should we do, lets just go, ok let's go, don't drive like a maniac we don't want to get a ticket, at least we aren't the only ones that arrived late, there's plenty of cars behind us waiting to park, these seats are great, wow we got here just in time!

In the end, we left our house at 7:40 and arrived in Anaheim by 8:05, and Bill hit the stage at about 8:15 or so. Pretty lucky!

Then, as we are waiting to leave the parking lot, we are waiting, waiting, waiting and someone finally leaves enough space for me to get out and I followed this long line of cars in the opposite direction of the rest of the cars, all around the stadium ( The Grove is in the parking lot of, what is it now, Edison Field? Where the Angles play) and we are going all in a line, about 40 cars and I am in the middle of the pack. Driving and driving, and after a few minutes, I wonder if the leader is the right person to be following, but so many people are following, I figure, ok, we're good they must know the secret exit. Uh, no.

We are following and suddenly instead of seeing just tail lights, we start seeing headlights because the exits are all closed off and the cars are turning around. Uh, no. So I go straight instead of falling in line before the giant U-Turn and follow some of the cars that already turned around in a new direction, and now we are heading for the exit that we use when we go to a baseball game, except my husband and I know that the barriers are up at that exit since we saw it when we came in to the Grove. We both look at each other and in perfect unison, shout "Rock and Roll" because we realize we are having a total Spinal Tap moment and feel pretty stupid for following the wrong line of cars.

We get to the exit and of course it's blocked off just like we knew it would be. Instead of turning around, however, I decided, in my mini-ute CR-V, to finally go off roading for the first time since I got it 6 years ago. My husband gets out and walks along the sidewalk to make sure there is no sudden drop off or danger and I drive up onto the sidewalk, over the lawn, and, checking for Anaheim's finest (nowhere to be seen) I drive onto the street, pick up my husband, make a U-Turn, and head right for the Carpool lane ramp onto the 5 and head home.

Behind me, all the luxury sedans, Priuses, Lexus SUVs and Mercedes SUVs and some aggro Nissan SUV all turned around and continued on the wild goose chase. Only the Land Rover followed me out of the maze and into the night.

Oh yeah, the show was good too.

This one has more pictures than the last one, so be patient while they load.

Unmolded Jello Soap
After chilling the mold most of the day, I've turned it out onto the cutting board. Now, you'll see why I wanted it cold.

Shred Shred Shred
I push it down the chute of my food processor using the shredding blade. If the soap was at room temperature, it will cause the food processor to jam. As it is, I just give it a gentle pressure to keep it moving, never forcing it. When the bowl is full, I dump it out and shred some more. I have to empty the bowl three times for the 1/2 pound of soap.

A full bowl
Here it is all dumped into the mixing bowl.

Stuffing the molds
I stuff the molds with the shredded soap. I want it to be loose enough for the white soap base to fill in the spaces, so I don't pack it in too tight.

Chopping the White Soap Base
Using the bench scraper, I chop up a pound of the white soap base.

Ready to melt some more
I also throw in the heel of the soap that didn't get shredded, and pop it in the microwave on 60% power for 5 min.

Adding the dyes
I want the white base to be slightly green tinted, so I add a bit of blue and yellow dye. I've also done this soap with pale orange, to go with the Ginger-Lime scent. I also add the scent now.

It's so hot, the coconut oil is melted
Now you know why I put the soap in the fridge, eh? We are having a bit of a heatwave here. I should have put the coconut oil in the fridge too! Anyway, I add a tablespoon to the bowl.

Waiting for the Shea Butter to melt
I also add a tablespoon of Shea Butter. If you add too many/too much oils to the soap, you will get a nice soap but not a satisfying creamy foamy lather. Yeah, I figured that out by experience. ;/ This seems about the right balance for me.

Filling the molds
I pour the white base in the molds to fill in the spaces between the green shreddies. You can see the way it fills in on the clear container.

Turning out the molds
After letting the soaps cool for a few hours (it doesn't take that long to cool, I just didn't get to it sooner) I pop them out onto the cutting board to trim them up and make them into soap bars.

Did you see that? Whoops
There was an area that was either too densely packed, or I poured to slowly for the soap to fill in the blanks. Either way, it won't make a good bar of soap, so I will cut that piece out.

Trimming up the bars
The other loaf looks great. I trim off the stuff that stuck to the sides of the mold and make some nice chunky soap bars.

Saving up the scraps
Those scraps can be put in a small mold, or this rice bowl, to make one final bar of soap. Just heat it up in the microwave for a few minutes at 60% power but keep an eye on it, since it's much smaller than the larger quantities melted earlier. In the end, after cutting the smaller loaf into bars, I decided that it really wasn't structurally sound, there were too many places that had air pockets. In the shower, a bar of soap like that would just fall apart. So, I ended up melting the whole loaf in the mold and let it set. It made a nice creamy green bar.

The final blocks
Here are the final products with the cool shreddy green colors in the center. Smells great, it's husband approved ;/ and feels great on the skin.

I hope you'll give it a try some time, even if you don't do the shreddy bits. It really is a superior product to the supermarket soaps, even if you chop it out of the container it comes in and use it straight without the additives.

Enjoy!