Fair Isle + DPNs = pure evil

The hat is off the needles!  I thought that as soon as I started decreasing the hat would be finished in no time.  And granted, I did finish it by my goal date, but it really was a terrible way to finish a project.  In addition to the sheer difficulty of knitting fair isle on super slippery metal DPNs which led to countless dropped stitches and a sudden attack of color mistakes that I deemed too difficult to fix, I am somewhat dissatisfied with the decreases.  Previously I had always evenly spaced my decreases, but after looking at countless charts I thought I would try starting and ending each repeat with a decrease because this seemed to be the norm.  In practice, it created a ridge and a pointy top.  If this hat was not for Paul-John I would add a pompom but, it is for Paul-John.  And, last but not least, when he tried it on it was just a tad too short, barely skimming the tops of his ears.

But what made my night was after I commented on the length, he said: "but you haven't blocked it yet, so I'm sure it'll fit."  

Validation from a real knitter

It is 2 am on a Saturday night, and yours truly is eating nachos, watching the Olympics (oddly enough, more ping pong.  Perhaps I have finally found my muse?), and blogging.  The party never stops at 151.

I have a coworker who is a fellow knitter and we often talk about our projects and bring them in, although she almost always has some sort of project, whereas pre-Ravelry I could go months between mine.  A couple months ago she signed up for a top down sweater knitting class.  Not long after I started a hat for Paul-John.  This has provided constant conversation, since she had never done top down before, and I made my first (crochet) top down cardigan and a top down sweater (currently hibernating) just last winter.  She has never done fair isle knitting and this was my first foray into it, so a lot of excitement all around about new techniques.  

In this time she has finished two entire sweaters, and I am halfway done with this hat.  I have always been a slow knitter, but this also includes the time it took to design a pattern (I have made plenty of hats just winging it, but this turned out to be a completely different monster) make half a hat, frog, redesign, and am now once again only about halfway done.  Still, she has knitted two entire sweaters, and all I have is half a hat.  

Since the pattern was visible enough to not look like just a lot of random color changes, I finally brought it into work.  Although proud enough of my work, on the needles and pre-blocking it is pretty bumpy and not necessarily as awe inspiring as i expect it to be when finished.  Even still, Nancy was very impressed with my technique and just as impressed with the pattern (yes, dorky enough to bring in my excel worksheet) and the fact that I designed it myself.   She asked me to show her how I hold both strands, and I felt much too clever showing her my top thread and bottom thread and I how turn them in opposite directions in order not to twist them, and she said it made so much sense now that she has seen it in person.  She was even impressed with how the inside looked.  

And although ripping out the first hat nearly crushed my spirit, it really did help in the long run.  Revamping the pattern meant shorter carries, and more intuitive knitting with less time looking at the pattern.  And I am much more comfortable holding both strands while knitting instead of dropping the one I wasn't using and trying to guess how long the slack should be when its picked back up.  I am now zooming along - halfway done in rounds, but only 5 rounds away from decreasing, at which point it should really take off.   

Originally my goal was to finish the hat by next weekend, but based on my progress, I'm hoping to move that up a couple days.  Tuesday would be awesome, but I'll aim for Wednesday.

Great day

The past two days are the type of days when I seriously consider spending all of my extra cash on scratch-off lotto tickets mixed with an occasional trip to the casino until I hit it big enough to no longer work full-time.  

Yesterday I made my second batch of jam - strawberry kiwi - and felt much more confident about the consistency when I was ladling it into the jars.  I also finally found time to re-block my cardigan, which I had been putting off because I knew I wouldn't be wearing it anyways, and finally finished charting out the design for Paul-John's hat.  And, of course, started a new blog.  

This morning started out fantastic, with coffee and a toasted plain bagel with cream cheese and... raspberry peach jam!  It had set perfectly, was slightly tart due to the lack of sugar, but tasted great with cream cheese on a bagel.  There is nothing like starting the day with a delicious breakfast and a great self-esteem boost.  I got a solid five rounds done on the hat, watched some Olympic ping pong, and took photos of the cardigan and updated Ravelry.  I am feeling productive and satisfied.

Pump up the jam!

I decided to start fresh in the blogging world.  My livejournal was too pathetic and was acting as anti-inspiration, so here I am.  

Yesterday I made jam for the first time!  This was something I had wanted to try for some time, and I was surprised by how simple the process was.  However, the jam is still cooling/setting so I am not sure how successful I was, especially considering that I did not completely follow the directions but wanted to get creative.

My first batch was raspberry peach.   I bought the no sugar needed pectin, which recommends using fruit juice or Splenda instead of the massive amounts of sugar normally needed.   I decided to use raspberry wine and a tiny bit of honey and cinnamon.  This sounded delicious but even after boiling longer than the recipe called for it never seemed to thicken, so I am going to let it sit a little bit longer before I open the first jar.  Today I will be making strawberry kiwi and have already decided to use less liquid than yesterday, but I am still going to use the wine.