Go Team Apathy! or not, whatever.

Talk started all over Ravelry about the Ravelympics.   I got excited.  I thought it might be fun to participate, I never had before.  The 12 at a time socks are laying there,   ripped twice and contemplating their fate.  I figured I could do them for the Ravelympics and knit my way to glory.  
So I started watching my groups.   Since I'm all about the image I was going to join groups teams with cool names.   Imagine my disappointment when the names chosen were either cutesy or just meh.   It took a total of a week for me to get completely apathetic about it.   Where were all the awesome names?  Even the name Team Motherfucking Pterodactyl was shot down.  
So I messaged someone and told them I give up,  I'm holding out for Team Apathy.  She messaged me back asking if there was a Team Apathy and I told her no.   She said if I started one she'd join.  So for kicks and giggles I created Team Apathy.   We even have a motto.

We Don't Care if We Finish or Not.

One other person joined us and we figured it would be the three of us.   To our surprise people started joining.  I don't know how many team members we have.   But they're a fun bunch. 

I think my first Ravelympics is going to be fun.  Even if I don't finish anything.   

Houston, we have a problem...

So in working, albeit slowly on my 6 pairs at once project I ran into a problem.   Although my gauge matched what the patterns called for some of the socks, 4 pairs to be exact, were coming out too big.  I wasn't far enough into them that it cause too much discomfort to rip them out and start again.  I'll be using the same yarns, but different patterns.   I have the patterns chosen and I'm casting them on again.  I will update once I have finished casting on and gotten a few rows worked.   

I'm also behind on my knitting for other people so once these are cast on they'll lay aside until July when the Ravelympics starts. 

I should really try to not be so lazy about my posting and do updates on other stuff I knit.   Really,  I knit all the time.   I just never post about it.  I should do that. 

Post edited.   I won't be doing the Ravelympics.

Further Proof of Insanity

For those of you playing at home, one more thing to prove that I'm a little left of center.   

I decided some time ago that if I could knit 2 socks at a time on 2 circulars, then I could knit more.  4, 6, 20, hell I could knit 500 if I could find a needle long enough.   OK, 500 might be a bit ambitious.  Let's keep it fairly simple and not have to find a 500" needle in size 2.  I decided on 6 pairs, 12 socks at one time.

I'm by no means a pioneer,  Meet Brian.  14 socks on one 120" circular needle.   I read the blog,  looked at his set up and tried to figure out what I could do to make it work for me. For about a year I have thought about it on and off.  Six months ago I had accumulated enough pattern ideas and sock yarn to seriously contemplate the idea.   So I started researching. 

2 major issues arose:
1. Keeping the yarn from tangling.
2. The weight of all these socks on my wrists.

The weight I realized would pretty much solve itself.  Because of the length of needle I would have to use most of the weight would be resting in my lap. (this certainly isn't something I can walk around and knit)  But the tangling issue needed further thought.   Even knitting 2 at a time you can have a bunch of pain in the ass twists. Brian's set up was nice,  but I wanted something that was a bit more portable and since jobless bum is jobless, something cheap.  I had been talking to the roomie about this idea and he surprised me one day by bringing home a small wine box from work.   A cardboard box with an insert dividing it into 12 small compartments.   BOOYAH!     I set to work. 

I cut the box down to 4" and the inserts to 3.5".   I covered the rough top edges with duct tape.   I collect interestingly shaped paper clips and have a bunch of spiral shaped ones that I clipped on to the side of the box to use as guides for the yarn.  I also couldn't just work from both ends of the yarn like I normally do, so I had to divide the skeins into 2 balls.  With a little help from a scale this was a fairly easy task. 

Divider with yarn and 47" addi turbo needles:

Next was finding patterns that would work.  I wanted all cuff down patterns because this is just what I prefer.  The patterns must all have a gauge of 8-9 sts per inch and most importantly, no shifting of stitches.   I'm not one to knit a pattern more than once so each sock was going to have to be different.  I searched the Ravelry database for hours on end and finally found the 6 patterns that I would knit.  

So here we have it.


Top Left:  Dizzy Up The Girl in Gotta Be  -  Pattern: Summer Lovin' Socks by Dawn Matkovic
Top Right: Madelintosh Sock in Port  -  Pattern: Gentian by Lisa Stichweh
Middle Left: Wollmeise Sockenwolle 80/20 in Spice Market  -  Pattern: Unraveling Rib Socks by Amy Tyszkiewicz
 Middle Right: Colorbug Yarns Stella Sock in Beautiful Butterfly  -  Pattern: Jekyll & Hyde by Sarah Wilson
Lower Left:  Great Adirondack Yarn Co. Silky Sock in Peacock  -  Pattern: Harvest Dew by Rose Hiver
Lower Right: The Sanguine Gryphon Bugga! in Sharpshooter Leafhopper  -  Pattern: Twisted Mockery by Lisa Stichweh

My goal is to cast on before Black Friday.  Wish me luck!

The Evil Cycle

So I have found that I really enjoy dyeing.   The problem is I will never use all the yarn I dye,  and I want to dye more.  So I am hoping to set up a shop on Artfire and sell the yarn I dyed, so I can buy more yarn to dye.    It's insane how addictive it is just playing around with string and color.   I'm never going to be a big time dyer.  I enjoy the process too much and I like to take my time.  But being able to support my dyeing habits would be totally awesome.  I haven't taken pictures yet of the yarn I'm listing but will in the next few days.

Not Yarn Related

This is now my new favorite word
 Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz

I'm A Slacker

So I really was going to dye up some mohair,  but can't seem to find it anywhere :/   So I waited until I had everything I needed to dye with the acid dyes that I received.  Because I'm a big scaredy cat I first decided to dye some yarn I received as a gift with direct orders to throw it in the dyepot.  It's a nice blue, but much to bright for my taste.

I put one skein in the pot and added some purple and black.   I like it better now and plan to knit me a hat with it.

I put the second skein in the dyepot and used only black.  I plan to knit a hat for Ruben with it.

After these two skeins I got feeling ambitious, with some help from liquid courage.  I decided it was time to dye the sock yarn.  First I wrote LOVE using black dye on it....

Then I smooshed it all down using my GLOVED fingers, only to find out that my left glove had holes in two of the fingers...

I then filled in with the purple dye, which in my either excitement or buzzed stupor, promptly forgot to take a picture of.   Oh well time to steam!  Steamed it for 30 minutes and let it cool.  It took forever to cool down.  I then opened it up and promptly forgot to take a picture again before I ran off to rinse it.   I let it dry and FINALLY remembered to take a picture of it....

I really like the way all of them came out.  I'm now hoping to get a few more colors to mess around with.   Now to just figure out what socks I will be knitting with it.  It will of course be a pattern out of the book I received in the gift.

NEW STUFFS!!!! aka Squeeeeeeeeeeee

So today a package from someone wonderful arrived in the mail today.  It contained Sock Innovation by Cookie A, a skein of KP Gloss in Bare,  and 2 bottles of Jacquard dye in Purple and Jet Black. 

squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I have been wanting to play with acid dyes but haven't been able to so far.  Now my big chance has arrived!

Knitter's/Dyer's Porn:

 

When I opened the box my first thought was LOVE!  So my idea is to dye the yarn purple,  and write LOVE on the skein in black.  I have no idea how this should be done so that the black doesn't just blend in with the purple,  so my day will be spent doing research on this.    I can't wait!!   Also,  today was planned to dye some mohair with wilton's black.  Hopefully I'll get some nice breaking.