Knitting Frenzy

I just looked at my last entry on this blog and was appalled to see that it has been over 3 weeks. Not that ever had many readers, but is anyone still out there?


I haven't been writing, but I have been knitting. To the point that my shoulder aches, and I'm pulling out the xerox sheet of physical therapy exercises I got a few months ago when my shoulder pain became unbearable and an orthopedist referred me to physical therapy. That was back when I thought Taekwando was causing my shoulder pain -- now I know it's kntting.


I am on a bit of a knitting frenzy -- the holidays are coming!!! My two youngest children have come to believe that the holiday season is When Mom Knits Us New Stuff. And I love knitting things for them, because they wear my creations obsessively. I also want to knit gifts for other family members. But the real reason I'm in a frenzy? There are so many projects I want to knit for myself.


So here's the latest batch of FO's.


Winter Camp Sucks Socks for oldest son, who does not share his siblings sense of entitlement around hand-knitted items for the winter season:


That's my feet they're modeled on. I knit and finished these right in front of him, and he never blinked. I quietly put them away in the closet after I finished them. He likely thinks they were knit for myself -- our feet are the same lenght, but his are a bit wider. Please see previous blog posts for the reason behind the project name.

Specs:
Yarn: Elann Peruvian Luxury Merino Superwash in Slate Gray. Lovely yarn. It was billed as DK, but it was nice and beefy -- more like a Worsted, truthfully.
Pattern: A melange of instructions from C. Schurch's books. The leg is Ribbed Squares from More Sensational Knitted Socks, the cuff and foot patterns are just extensions of that pattern. Short row heel (to minimize bulk) and traditional toe.
Needles: Clover 24" size 3 bamboo circs. First time I've used these. Nice needles, very smooth join, but a bit too "sticky" for working with wool. Slow.
Learned for next time: Short row heels are shorter than flap heels, and I really need to add an extra inch or two to the leg!

Next up, Tri-Peak Hat, knit for one of my sib's kids. I actually started this as the jester hat my middle son asked for, but realized after about 4" that it was mistake to change both the needle size and %ease without re-doing the calcs. It was too tight on my 11YO, but I figured it would be a good fit on a pre-schooler -- and since I intended to use the same yarn for the tri-peak hat anyway, I just switched patterns mid-way. The hat is modeled here by my daughter, ever-willing to model knitwear and never without a knitwear request...




Specs:
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts "Twisted", in Gingerbread Dude.
Pattern: Baby Tri-Peak Hat by Woolly Wormhead. Modified for finer gage. I also added 2 rounds of 1x1 rib to control the roll of the brim.
Needles: addi turbo circs, 4mm.

And then I did actually knit my son's Jester hat -- a pic from above:


...and one from the front, pulled over the face, glasses and all:

Specs:

Pattern: Jester Hat from Woolly Wormhead. Adapted for finer gage and smaller head -- easy enough, just cast on a multiple of 6 stitches. Also with 2 rounds of 1x1 rib in the brim.

Yarn and needle same as above.

Learned for next time: IF I knit this pattern again, I will work a couple of inches fewer in the main body so that I can make the points way longer, per my son's preference. Also, cast on either 6 more or 6 fewer stitches to eliminate the pooling that this hat suffered. And finally, double check that you've woven that end in before you snip it!!!!!

And a few more comments about the yarn. I LOVE this yarn. It is wonderfully soft, and the colors are almost literally delicious. Maybe if the colorway had a different name I would have had a different reaction, but every time I got to the white section of the yarn my mouth would water. I would envision white frosting piped onto a warm gingerbread man, and I would wish I could run a finger through and lick it before anyone came in the kitchen. The yarn came in a generous 560 yard skein -- enough for 3 hats, but I'm going to save the last little bit to enjoy over the Christmas vacation.

BUT a word of caution -- Twisted is billed as Aran weight, but it worked more like worsted for me. Maybe with big enough needles you could get 18sts/4", but to get a not-too-flimsy fabric for a hat I worked it at 24 sts/4".

Hiding in Plain Sight

A few weeks ago, M and I told our sons that they would be going to Boy Scout winter camp this year. Both of them have said that they want to earn their Eagle rank long term. Earning an Eagle rank requires lots of service hours, a big service project, and lots of merit badges. About half those badges are non-discretionary "Eagle-required" badges on subjects like "Citizenship in the Community" and "Personal Management."

My husband and I have been, and will continue to be, very supportive of our kids' scout activities. But sometimes support feels more like, well, nagging. Citizenship/Community for our older son required nearly daily "support" all summer. Occasionally this "support" culminated in screaming fits of exasperation. As in, "This is the third day in a row you've told me you didn't have time! How could you not have 10 minutes to google 'suburban alligator control'!" The worst was the 3 weeks of "support" it took to get him to actually talk to someone in the Texas Parks and Wildlife department about alligator control -- the absolute last requirement on that badge. While I remember my own teenage mortification at the idea of talking to a grownup, I was nevertheless impatient with his plight.

So I'm a bit weary of "support." And this winter camp looked like an exceptional opportunity. Large attendance (something like a thousand kids) and staffed by parents and scout leaders who share our interest in knocking out those badges. In a 4 day camp, they typically earn 4 to 6 badges. And with the large numbers of boys, they offer just about every merit badge.


We decided to trade in our summer badgering routine for a few relatively short weeks of acute whining. Good trade-off so far. The boys even wrote a highly entertaining essay on Why Winter Camp Sucks.

From the opening paragraph:

You get pneumonia from being in an overly cold environment, like winter camp. It
is one of the most horrible diseases ever. Frostbite can cause fingers, toes,
noses, etcetera to fall off. This could make it quite hard to play the guitar or
trumpet. And it would suck.

They tried pushig every real and perceived parental button -- here's one of the more entertaining attempts:

With the $280 bucks that you save from not sending us to winter camp, you could buy your own x-box 360 and the Tiger Woods golf game.

There was a comment about starving children in Africa -- a cliche I thought had passed with my childhood.

Or try this one:

Grandma and Grandpa won’t get to see us over the break and they will be sad because their only grand children are at some sucky winter camp in crappy little tents, trying to stay warm and not die of pneumonia or frostbite of the brain.

And the coup de grace:

There is no caffeine.
I suffer from caffeine withdrawal and there is no caffeine at camp.
There is no eggnog.
Eric suffers from chronic eggnog withdrawal.

If I could quit laughing I might feel bad for them.

But what does this have to do with knitting, you ask?

Lest anyone accuse me of not being sympathetic to my sons' miserable situation, I cast on a new pair of socks last night. Winter Camp Sucks socks for the elder son. Worked in DK-weight merino on size 3 needles, they should keep his toes from freezing off.



I knit the swatch as he sat across the kitchen table from me, doing his Chemistry homework. He never asked. He showed me a magic trick while I was doing the ribbing. He might have looked at my pattern notes with the heading "WCS socks." But I'm sure he didn't. And I'm sure he won't look at this blog either. And the funnest part will be that since our feet are the same length I can try them on my own feet instead of his, and he will just assume the socks are for me. They will be a surprise Christmas present that he's seen a hundred times but not noticed.

If he's lucky I'll have enough yarn leftover to knit him a Winter Camp Sucks hat.