jogless stripes

Jogless Stripes: When knitting stripes in the round, one of the downfalls is the jump in color where one round transitions to the next. Knit one round in the new color. At the beginning of the next round, insert the right needle tip into the left leg of the stitch in the row below the first stitch of the round (old color stitch) and place this stitch on the left-hand needle (figure 1). it this stitch together with the first stitch of the next round to raise the color of the previous round to the height of the new round (figure 2). Do this at the beginning of every round that involves a color change.

Figure 1

Figure 2

At the beginning of the next round, insert the right needle tip into the left leg of the stitch in the row below the first stitch of the round (old color stitch) and place this stitch on the left-hand needle (figure 1). it this stitch together with the first stitch of the next round to raise the color of the previous round to the height of the new round (figure 2). Do this at the beginning of every round that involves a color change.

—from Weekend Hats

Is Shame Necessary?

Is Shame Necessary? | Conversation | Edge

found this amazing website. am gonna use it in the classroom for harkness/blog assignments. i like being able to read about current events without having to resort to usual news arenas. anymore, i think those have been corrupted and skew one way or the other. there are no more edward r. murrows anymore, are there?

why i had children

ME: (standing in front of the mirror in my underclothes, jiggling my belly)
ALY: That's your muffin top.
ME: (sighing mournfully) I know, right?
ALY: Don't be sad, Mom. You got that from us, right? So that's just where you keep all your love.

kids say the darndest things. :)

in preparation for going back to work

pinkberry is my new crack

as per usual, i get to jump on the bandwagon after everyone else has gotten off.  but that's okay; more room for me.

ahhhh, pinkberry!  where have you been all my life?  i love the simplicity of your original flavor...

but the mango flavor is such a burst of yummy swartness/tweetness (sweet/tart) in my mouth.

and let's not forget that most delectable, indescribable unity of salt and sweet that is salted caramel.

i have yet to partake of the other seasonal flavors (watermelon, chocolate and pomegranate) but you can be sure that i shall frequent your establishment at least once a week from now on and not one flavor will go untasted.

as starbucks is to most, so shall pinkberry be to me.  my pocketbook bemoans its fate but my taste buds will not be denied.

i wonder if i can strongly suggest pinkberry gift cards from my students for christmas and teacher appreciation day?

heartache comes cheaply

dylan lost his wallet today.  or perhaps it was yesterday.  regardless, we found out that he'd lost it today, so we mark the date as such.  he's currently sitting on the couch, drowning his sorrows in spongebob.  he told me that he "doesn't feel like talking right now because i'm sad.  maybe i'll feel better tomorrow and i'll talk then." 

this broke my heart just a little and i wanted so much to tell him that it was gonna be okay and that i'd replace his wallet and the money in it, but the teacher/lesson giver/miser in me rebelled against being his enabler and i stood firm.  i shook my head, said i was sorry, and left it at that.  i wonder if i did the right thing.

i don't want to fall into the habit of bailing my kids out.  i want them to learn - even if the hard way - that life isn't fair or easy, and that things won't be handed to them all the time.  but it's still tough for me to watch his sad, little face out of the corner of my eye. 

that's the mom in me, i guess.

sadly, i'm not just a mom.  i'm also a soriente.  and that means that i'm just as mad as i am sad.  i'm mad at dylan for being careless and irresponsible.  i'm furious at him for losing seven whole dollars.  i know, right?  seven bucks.  give the kid a break.  but seven dollars was half of the build-a-bear toy we were gonna buy tomorrow for our last "adventure thursday".  or it could've been seven toys from the dollar bin at target that i didn't need to buy the next time we went.  or it could've been candy or vending machine treats or slurpees or any of the other myriad things that tend to add up when i go out with the kids and which i've started making them pay me back for when i buy them. (that was a poorly-constructed sentence but i'm writing this on the sly - dylan keeps passing by now and looking over my shoulder - so forgive the lapse).

so, yeah.  i'm conflicted as hell and i feel like a terrible person.  but this, too, shall pass.  i know this.  and hopefully dylan'll learn to pay more attention and be more careful in the future.  and hopefully i'll be able to reassure myself that seven dollars now is a helluva lot cheaper than hundreds in the future.

covington part deux

as posted on the anthropologie group forum:

So I decided to add sleeves - not necessarily because of my “fat” arms; thanks for the vote of confidence, tricotgirl and lovetorun! - but so I can have more options with looks. I liked it, especially with JSSBO, then I soaked and lightly blocked it. And…AHAHAHAHAHAHA!

It ended up a dress!

I did like it that way, but I worried about its wearability (you know, sitting on it and such), so I threw it in the dryer on medium heat for 8 minutes and…

I know the picture doesn’t show the true contrast, but I swear it shrunk a good 5-6 inches. I know cotton is magic, but didn’t realize how magic.

So I guess in the end, it’s become my dual purpose FO - block it for a dress or dry it for a top.

covington can kiss my purple starfish

what a PITA this project was.  i'm not really feeling in the ranting mood so here are the highlights of suckage in as spare of prose as i can manage:

1. missed gauge 3 times and had to frog 3 lace repeats (or 21 rounds or ~2100 stitches) all 3 times before i could even get out the gate.
2. covington yarn - ah, what a roller coaster ride it was! first, you were smooth and silky and easy to work with, especially since you were cotton and i usually loathe that fiber. but then you started to split like crazy. and you decided you hated my blunt bamboo circs. and then you kept puffing up linty things that made my nose itch and run.  and you developed a strong antipathy for k2tog, which was the majority of this pattern. now, alas, you are persona non grata in my book.  never again, covington.  never again!
3. JSSBO - another love/hate relationship.  i love the look of you, the flexibility and stretchiness of you.  but what the hell with reverse YOs?  why?!  WHY?!  because reverse YOs, coupled with splitty yarn and blunt bamboos equal an experience akin to paper cuts bathed in alcohol.  i persevered but binding off with you 4 times for this project was not pretty.

i shall take pictures of the FO and post here at a later date.  or perhaps just on my project page on rav since no one i know from my knitting community reads this blog anyway.  don't get me wrong, gentle reader: i ended up loving the garment, even if it's not really my color.  and i will probably rock the look for multiple seasons because it's a great layering piece. so i should probably show it off.  i'm just monthly and bloaty and i think on the road to a summer cold-y right now, and since i don't have good luck with photos in the first place, i wouldn't hold my breath for a pictorial anytime soon.

ravelry to the rescue - short rows

short rows have always and probably will continue to befuddle me.  but every seasoned knitter i know swears by them, citing short rows as the liberator/savior from shapeless knits.  unfortunately for me, reading about them and poring over diagrams and even watching youtube videos just haven't helped.  i can't seem to wrap my mind around them - pun intended, for all you knitters out there.  ;p

so when i posted another cry for help for my current WIP, and when good ol' schrouderknits responded with her amazing clarity, i knew i had to repost our entire convo once again for when i'm really ready to tackle short rows for real.

ME: 
I am in the process of knitting Katy Did It in the round as per askaar’s mods. I have split for front and back and, after having finished and bound off the front, am realizing that I perhaps want some short row action on the back so I won’t be garroted.

If I’m correct in my assumption and I could stand to do some short rows, how many sets do you think I need to work? Would 2 or 3 do the trick?

Also, I have researched extensively on how to do short rows and some instructions have you increasing as you do your wrap and turns - I don’t exactly know why this is necessary and am wondering if I need to do so in this case.

And finally, if I do need several sets of short rows, how many stitches past the wrapped stitch do I work before turning again?

Of course, if you all say that I don’t need short rows at all and that the front neckline will drape nicely and not cut my throat off, then maybe I can once again put off understanding short rows for another day. ;p

SCHROUDERKNITS:

This sweater’s neckline is not shaped at all. That works because it’s a boatneck, ie the neckline is much wider than usual which is left open when you sew your shoulder seams together, theoretically leaving enough room to get your head through it. Usually it is straight across on the back of the neck, but because of one’s anatomy, the front droops a bit under the neck so it doesn’t end up choking you as long as you BO loosely enough.

This wouldn’t be the type of neckline I would short-row and this st patt does not lend itself well to short-rowing. That’s 2 strikes against short-rowing, so I’d look for other options.

eta - re the bit about short-rowing referring to “increasing” - they’re not talking about inc’ing the total # of sts, they’re talking about working across more and more of the sts in the row. EG if you had 100 sts across the row and were short-rowing in 10 st increments, starting with 10, then you’d knit across 10, leaving 90 sts unworked, turn and purl back 10. Then you’d knit across 20 sts, leaving only 80 unworked, turn and purl back the 20. Then you’d knit across 30, leaving only 70 unworked, and so on, thus “increasing” the # of sts you’re working across in each set, but the # of unworked sts “decreases” at the same time, leaving you with the same # of sts you always had. HTH -

If the front is too high for your comfort and/or you find the wide neckline falling off a shoulder, I would advise undoing shoulder seams, ripping the front back down ~3”, then BO the front neck section, perhaps ~8” wide, then cont working on each side up straight to make a rectangular neck “hole”.

ME:
Huzzah for not short rowing! Procrastination wins again! Although, after your explanation of “increasing”, I may just be one step closer to fully comprehending the beast that is short rows.

(For future reference, how does one decide how many stitch increments to short row? In your example, you say 10 stitch increments; is there a ratio/magic number to figuring this out?)

Am in the process of knitting up the back and will update on whether, once connected, the front is too high and will need ripping back. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it won’t.

SCHROUDERKNITS:

I pulled 10 sts out of my, uh, hat!

You choose the # based on the # of inches more you want x your row gauge, then divided over the # of sts with which you’re working. In the example I was giving, I was only adding short rows at one end, thus would end up with a triangular wedge that was tall at the right edge of the fabric and tapered down at the left end to a point. By dividing that 100 sts into 10 st increments, that adds 20 rows to the right edge and only 2 rows at the left edge. For a row gauge of 7 rpi, that would be almost 3” on the right edge, 1/3” on the left. If I was using thin yarn at 10 rows per inch, then that’s only 2” tall, and so forth.

If you’re following a patt and it gives you specifics on short-rowing, draw some horizontal lines on a piece of paper, the longest one showing the full width of a row, then each subsequent one working only over part of it is rough approximation of the proportions to show you the general shape the short rows will give, then adding completely long lines again at the top to cover all the ups and downs. That will smooth out what otherwise looks like stairsteps, so you’ll see where the fabric slopes up and then down again, or down and then up, or however it’s shaped.