Happy birthday to me

It's a freakishly warm, sunny 50 degree day in mid-December. My best friend is in town. I have the next four days off.

And of course there's this freshly-turned heel.



Plus, we're heading out to IKEA in a few hours.

I was completely and perfectly content with how my birthday was shaping up and really thought it couldn't get any better. When suddenly my best friend - my resolutely non-knitting best friend - uttered the magic words:

"Will you teach me how to knit?"

Leftover sock yarn fun

If I were a better person I might say I planned to make wee sweater ornaments for everyone on my list, but weaving in ten ends on something this small is more than I can bear.

The original pattern used three separate colors instead of self-striping yarn, so by my calculation there would be at least 24 ends to weave in, not to mention the seaming up of sides and arms. On a palm-sized mini sweater. Crackhead pattern writers.

Still, awfully cute for an hour or so of work...

My best friend is better than yours

I got this early birthday present in the mail yesterday, from my best friend Sarah out in California.


She took all my Flickr knitting photos and made them into a calendar! It has all our friend's birthdays marked on it, as well as the anniversary of my first blog post and adorable entries like "Wear green socks for St. Patrick's Day."

The best part? She's not even a knitter, and the October page is boldly headlined "Are you ready for Socktoberfest?" Her awesomeness can barely be described in words.

I'm sure your best friend is wonderful in many ways. But clearly I have the best-est of all possible best friends.

More fun than is legal in some states

To dye your own yarn:

First, you'll have to haul your sorry hungover ass out of bed to buy a microwave-safe container and a crappy pot. There's really no way to avoid this unpleasantness.

If possible, try to avoid spilling coffee all over yourself three times while walking to the housewares store. If you attended your corporate holiday party the night before, the yarn gods will understand if you do not succeed in this.

Second, assemble your components while you give your yarn a nice bath in some lukewarm water with a bit of mild detergent. Some people use a special yarn-friendly detergent like Wool Wash. I just used my regular Method stuff.



Take a moment to marvel at how the yarn really does look exactly like spaghetti. Give it a few gentle squeezes while you're there.



Mix more Koolaid than you think you need with a bit of water in a microwave-safe container. The rule of thumb is one packet per ounce of yarn.

Do not blithely assume that your yarn label will tell you how many ounces of yarn you have in your skein. It's possible that your yarn will be measured in grams. If you don't have your laptop with you or any grasp of basic conversions, just use all the damn Koolaid you have. I used a 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup, and a total of 20 Koolaid packets for two 440 yard skeins. Next time, you will probably want to use more Koolaid.

Place yarn in microwave-safe container with the Koolaid.



Freak out a little bit that you are about to put yarn IN THE MICROWAVE, but assume all the nice bloggers were not playing a cruel practical joke when they suggested doing so.

Microwave on high at two-minute intervals, waiting a few minutes in between, until water is mostly clear. Mine took six minutes for most of the dye to be absorbed.



You can also set the dye on the stovetop, but the microwave method seemed easier.

Allow yarn to cool, then rinse in lukewarm water.

If you want to hand-paint for a more mottled effect, put your yarn in something that you don't mind getting messy. Pour dye all over as desired. I'm pretty sure there's no wrong way to do this. I dribbled some fruit punch on, then dipped the whole thing in a mix of orange, cherry, more fruit punch and lemonade. Then just microwave as above.



Finally, do wear gloves. You may think you can just touch the dye quickly, then rinse your hands immediately. But you will be completely wrong.



After a thorough rinse, spread your yarn out to dry.



And be sure to stroke it lovingly every time you walk by.



I seriously can't remember the last time I had this much fun with my clothes still on.

Rewards, continued

I took the day off on Monday to finish off the library school semester. I spent most of the day writing a rather grim final paper on library services to incarcerated populations. Did you know that something like 40% of inmates don’t have a high school diploma or its GED equivalent? Screw No Child Left Behind – what about the adults who got left behind ages ago?

Anyway, I did take a super-fun break around noon to go to physical therapy (I know how to have the Best. Vacation. Day. Ever). I’ve been going once or twice a week since I hurt my back in October, focusing on core strengthening. During my initial evaluation - which consisted of lots of twisting, poking and prodding and “does this hurt” and “how about this” to which I answered yes (aloud) and “I hate you” (in my head) - the therapist pronounced me “loose.” After realizing he didn’t actually know me in college, I guessed “loose” was his euphemism for “completely lacking any kind of core strength.”

So I do lots of crunches and other improbable things while awkwardly balancing on an inflatable exercise ball and cursing the fact that I have a core and that it requires strengthening to avoid further excruciating back injuries.

Despite all the cursing, I do work my ass off. Because as it turns out, other people’s pain is remarkably motivating. Take my last visit - the other chick in the room had had a tibia replacement, followed by several really gruesome-looking knee surgeries. She was working on just being able to bend and put weight on the knee and it appeared to be remarkably painful, what with the squealing and the grunting and all the heavy breathing.

If she could do her exercises, by god, so can I. Seriously, it’s like having a roomful of personal trainers, but it’s free. Well, free except for that whole excruciating back injury part.

I even got some knitting done on the train ride back and forth. No pictures, though. For some reason my camera now staunchly refuses to take an in-focus picture of the sock-in-progress. Everything else is in-focus, but the sock appears to be warping the space-time continuum. Or I might just be twitchy from all the coffee. Not sure.

Most importantly, the semester is over. As a well-earned reward, Saturday will be All About Dyeing Yarn. 44 hours and counting.

Sock quickie

I did some poking around and went with Deborah's suggestion to cast on about 10% fewer stitches than I thought I needed based on my measurements. This seems to have worked out fine with the experimental sock-in-progress, though exact gauge is way less important with socks as stretchy as these.

Incidentally, in poking around, I found misocrafty's super-helpful sock knitting resources. I'm pretty sure there's an answer there for every sock question anyone might ever have.

Later on I saw (blogless?) Bettina's comment about how sometimes the sock yarn wants a size 1 needle and sometimes it wants a size 2. This "listening to the yarn" thing is a wonderful idea. Normally, I think I've been assuming that all yarn wants to be knit crushingly tightly on whatever size needles might sort of get me gauge, regardless of whether this is what would best serve the yarn. Because the yarn is not the boss of me.

But if I swatch, I have the opportunity to adjust for my tight gauge and get a soft, drapey fabric (if that's what the yarn wants) or a tighter fabric (again, if that's what the yarn wants).

That way I can knit something that fits AND show off the yarn to the best of its abilities. It's not wasteful or boring to swatch. It's respecting the yarn that I love so much. Awesome.

Simple rewards

I'm supposed to be writing my final paper for the library literacy class, but I've run into a stumbling block. If by stumbling block you mean I've been doing rather more of this than I should:



Clearly, this is not a ten-page research paper on library literacy services to incarcerated juvenile populations.

It is however great fun to knit. So much fun that I've had to implement a knitting-as-reward policy. Read one article. Knit one row. Read one article. Take pictures of experimental sock-in-progress. Read another article. Ad infinutum.



Next up - the Justice Department's spine-tingling page-turner Juvenile Offenders and Victims 2006.

I think I get a whole four-row repeat after reading that bad boy.