Where are we all hiding?

In knit blog land, there are a lot of blogs that have gone quiet this summer...some entries just shorter, some never updating (like mine).

Wonder where we are?

We are on Ravelry.

Go now and get on the waiting list. It's awesome. Take the screen tour.

I've been spending so much time on it -- it's so much easier to upload pictures and such on there, that I'm really contemplating ditching the blog altogether. (Gasp!) I'm not the only one.


The Finished Calorimetry made of Fjord



My toe-up socks on Magic Loop made from Yarntini's Cherry Cordial variegated



The Knit One Crochet Too Cabaret Scarf

Ravelry!

I love Ravelry.

Wait -- I REALLY love Ravelry.

I love Ravelry so much that I've spent most of the last month's 'online time' updating my stash on the Ravelry site. I've barely blogged. I've been photographing new yarn purchases, uploading them into Flickr, and putting in all my books, FOs, UFOs, etc.

I believe the big opening to many folks is happening very soon, so get in line and get ready to be wowed.

So, in the real world (i.e. not virtual), I'm back in Tokyo (a whole 24 hours now), and I've unpacked most of the bags. I have put all the newly purchased yarn in ziplock bags, and stuffed it all in the big TV cabinet (that no longer has a TV). It is now full, and I've imposed a 'no purchase rule' on myself. (I've heard from reputable sources that sock yarn is not counted in these rules.)

While in Minnesota, I purchased enough yarn, patterns, and books to keep me knitting for a few years. As a matter of fact, I entered a lovely yarn store while on vacation, and fondled many lovely things, yet BOUGHT NOTHING but a gauge and needle thingy. My husband seemed impressed at my restraint, and I honestly told him that he should be very afraid if he saw such restraint because it meant that even I now believed that I had too much yarn. Incredible, I know.

Must sleep -- jet lag makes me cranky.

Back from the lake

Back from the lake -- about a 3.5 hour drive for some people, I hear, but I've never done it that fast. Today was a personal record for me in the incredible length of time it took to get home. 12 and a half hours. Yep. Something to be proud of. And I went the speed limit the whole time I was driving -- no traffic jams, really. Here's how I frittered away the day:


9:00 am -- vacate cabin.
10:00 am -- give up waiting in line at freakishly crowded diner, go to coffee shop and buy latte and the two day-old cinnamon buns they have left
11:00am -- finally leave Walker, MN
11:20 am -- swerve wildly to avoid a head-on collision with a truck towing a boat that had been tail-gating a car that decided to stop suddenly to make a turn (why, why, why would anyone swerve INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC ON A HIGHWAY to avoid rear-ending someone instead of swerving onto the shoulder?) Thankfully, ALL cars in both directions had quick wits and there was no accident.
12 noon -- Lunch in Baxter -- subsequent yarn shopping! Stash enhancement: 3 patterns, and 7 skeins of merino-alpaca blend and one Mountain Colors (same shade as the 7 skeins I bought in the same store on the way UP north 1 week earlier)
2:00 pm Leave Baxter
3:00 pm Get gas and snacks near St. Cloud, MN.
4:00 pm (?) arrive at Albertville Outlet Mall
6:00 pm -- stay indoors at mall due to thunderstorm/tornado warnings (not that we were planning on leaving anyway)
8:00 pm Leave Albertville Outlet Mall

All I gotta say is, the COACH store at this outlet mall had WAY better prices that the outlet store in Gotemba in Japan -- WAY better. Everything else I bought at the outlet mall was for the kids' school clothes.

9:00 pm -- arrive in suburban MSP, hitting the edge of the big thunderstorm
9:30 pm -- arrive home, unpack car

I get home, there's a leak in the garage in the corner where my car and stuff are, and I had to spend an hour moving boxes and throwing stuff away that has water damage (apparently there was a lot of rain today). Luckily, most of the stuff was not really important, so I don't feel like I've lost anything but time.

Speaking of losing time, it's 1:19am, and time for me to have been sleeping for hours by now!

Bridge down?

The last 24 hours have been a bit surreal. The 35W bridge is down, as the entire world knows. There are a lot of bridges in Minneapolis. I even drove over the Mississippi River 4 times (on 2 different bridges) on August 2nd, hours before the 35W bridge collapse. Quick calls all around assured us that our friends and relatives were not on the bridge, and we are thankful, yet stunned. I keep thinking about the families who escaped, who are injured, or who have missing. I think of the bravery of the divers in that muck -- what a mess.

I had taken the safety and security of the roads here for granted. Now each bridge I drive over or under (and there are a lot of them) I take a little more notice.

Hug your loved ones again today.

Ravenclaw? No surprise there

So, I stayed away from the internet and tweens on Saturday, and only got to read my book at 11 pm on Sunday. I finished it at 5:30am on Monday morning, and had to wake up to take the kids to swimming lessons at 7:30.

Now I kind of knew that I shouldn't have stayed up that late. I'm really too old to be doing that. I obviously have no willpower. I will tell nothing of plot or anything, but I did think that while some of the vocabulary was stretched a bit at times, I enjoyed the book, and found all the ends tied up nicely.

I found the Sorting Hat quiz on Annie Modesitt's blog, and it put me in Ravenclaw. (I could have guessed that -- probably everyone who knows me would have put me there.)

I'm off to go buy some milk in the 90-something degree heat of Minneapolis. It's hot out there, baby.

The sorting hat says that I belong in Ravenclaw!

<

Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose intelligence is surest."

Ravenclaw students tend to be clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable.
Notable residents include Cho Chang and Padma Patil (objects of Harry and Ron's affections), and Luna Lovegood (daughter of The Quibbler magazine's editor).

Take the most scientific Harry Potter
Quiz ever created.

Get Sorted Now!

A Contest!

A contest for Victorian Lace and a skein of lace weight! Shelley Kang aka The Heathen Housewife is offering this contest, but you must be QUICK and enter by Friday July 20 before Shelley puts her kids to bed (I love that)!

Of course, if I am lucky enough to have lurkers that go enter *and* mention my blog or me, apparently I will get an extra chance. Love that.

Go now -- right here

Shelley is even offering to dye it to the winner's specifications. Sweet.

Go now. You have only 20 hours left.

Long ago (and far away)

Long ago, to save myself from some Kitchener stitch, I began some toe-up socks. I ripped out 66 stitches around and tried 88. I ripped out 88 and tried 77. I went with 77, then went too far, and ripped back so that I could have a heel in my socks. I made the heel (on blind faith), and got this far:



I think I'm liking it, and after this pic was taken I switched from zeros to ones, and I believe it will now allow my foot through the ankle portion. I kind of like the magic loop, but I'm not completely convinced yet.

Other things now OFF the needles! Swimming lesson time is a great time for me to sit and watch the kids and knit simple things. This scarf is beaded kidsilk haze at each end, and a very soft marled merino that I got in Tokyo. I did it in a simple feather and fan pattern. The ladies at the Rowan store in Tokyo gave me the pattern, and I only messed with it a little (!).


Then I also got a simple fancy fun thing from Knit Happens, and made this "Cabaret scarf." I am sure I never would have bought it in person, but I think it's growing on me. It is also finished.


I've begun another scarf with Knit One Crochet Two Jam fancy yarn, and while I am really not a big fan of the actual fancy yarns so much, I am enjoying the beauty of the colors as it comes out. The color blending is beautiful. You'll have to trust me on that, because right now there is a cold one waiting for me downstairs.



See ya later!

Pictures at last!

There has been a new development here at Tokyo Stitches (in Minnesota): the loss of two baby teeth!


The first was lost in the x-ray line at Narita Airport last Sunday -- the second of the top two was lost tonight, about 3 seconds after being tucked in, when she accidentally knocked her hand against her mouth and it fell out! Ta-da!

The Tooth Fairy has been notified.

Another delight (at least for me) was the arrival of the Sock Fairy, aka Blue Moon Fiber Arts:
Behold my lovely skeins of Socks that Rock. I've been wanting these for months. The colors are so beautiful I want to cry. As always, the colors are more more more in person. Imagine them a touch darker, and much more vivid and alive. They are soft. They are wonderful. I'm in love, and I don't know which one to knit first.

A really fun touch was the sticker they put in my box.
I feel like I'm part of the club now. I might even try to stick in on my blog somehow.

So back to the Minnesota Sky I love -- since I keep raving about it, here's a picture from my fantastic window, with the pinkish evening sky. It's not the best picture, but I wanted to highlight the light outside, not the window and wall inside. Don't you LOVE my window?
Let the record show that this picture was taken at exactly 9:09 pm Central Daylight Time. I love that it's still light out at 9pm.

The kids' room has a great window as well -- and a sun/moon on their ocean/beach fantasy wall. Since we can't paint the walls in our apartment in Tokyo, I went wild here!

Busy in SummerLand

We are loving Summer in Minnesota. Did I mention the blue blue skies and the flirty white clouds? The most beautiful skies in the world -- or at least some of them. (There are a lot of beautiful skies out in the world.) My apologies to those in some areas (like the Pacific NW perhaps) where gray and clouds are the norm.

Part of the fun of Minnesota is that the natives live large during the summer, knowing that it is brief and wonderful, and the days are long. They are walking, jogging, playing croquet, sitting at outdoor cafes, doing outdoor sports, and have a really fun time enjoying the summer. All too soon they will be putting on layers and watching the cold front move down from the Canadian Rockies straight over the Dakotas to Minnesota. Everyone is so happy and cheerful. I love it.

Pictures soon -- if you are walking around Minneapolis, St. Paul, or the southwest suburbs and see a woman knitting pink and chocolate colored socks -- say hi. It's me.

Life in Minnesota

Blue skies, freaky monsoon rains that start and end in a flash, green grass, smiling people -- I'm HOME!

I was greeted the evening of my arrival (driving jet-lagged in a rental car) by a darkening sky. My brother and I were grabbing some tacos to go, leave the Chipotle Grill and big raindrops are falling. By the time we get to his car, the rain is falling so heavy and fast (with pings of hail, too!) that if I had not been on a bridge with no shoulder I would have pulled over due to lack of visibility. Of course, 10 minutes later it was over, but it was pretty wild there!

The 11-hour plane ride was uneventful -- the best kind of trip. The kids were well-behaved, lined up patiently in each line they had to line up in, even when they had had only 90 minutes of sleep and it was 2am Tokyo time. The flight was a bit early, the bags came off right away, and we made it out to the arrivals area very quickly. (The speed of getting from baggage out to the arrivals area was due to a very kind flight attendant who took pity on me, with two dragging young children, each holding something (doll and stuffed dog) and pulling their suitcases, and I had 4 huge duffels on two carts, and I was walking back and forth between the carts pushing them and trying to get the kids to keep moving forward.... You can imagine.)

None of us slept much on the plane -- we've been here 2 days now, and we still haven't slept much.

Knitting on the plane? Surprisingly, even though I had two projects with me, I was busy attempting to feed the kids, get their crayons, books, snacks, etc, that I never was able to bring out my knitting, and then they turned the cabin lights off. I didn't get a single stitch in.

I *did* knit from 2am to 4am Monday morning, and for an hour this wee-am morning, so I think I've made up the time! And I've been knitting each morning during the kids' swimming lessons -- just need to be careful of where I sit, so that I don't end up getting chlorine on my socks!

More later -- we are swimming, biking, and falling asleep on the floor after eating just a few bites of dinner. (Actually, that was just one of us. I fell asleep on the sofa after finishing my dinner.)

Going to sleep now -- 9:32pm. I sure as &"'# hope I can sleep more than 2 hours tonight. I want to find knitting stores tomorrow!

Waiting for courage

While I've been waiting for the courage to rip out my lovely sock and re-start it (??!!), I've been trying to amuse myself with other things. I found an interesting Japanese book that had an amusing tank top in it that was all basically a mesh thing. I decided to try it for my daughter, who was excited about the idea. Unfortunately, I think I hate it. I have started twice, and I am just not enamored with the color, the ribbon, whatever. I'm using a size 15 needle, and I think it's going to take too long.



So I started a plain blue cotton hat for my son. About halfway through, I wonder why I'm doing it -- he doesn't need a cotton hat, and I'm not sure he wants one. He's a willing participant to the trying-on-thing, though, and I ask him if he'd like something on it, like a stripe in a fun color. "I want horsies on it," he responds, as he walks out of the room. (Remember the race car vest? He has an extremely vivid imagination of what I can put on knitted items because of it.)

Since I can't put horsies on a bulky cotton hat (without sewing patches on, making the whole thing a huge horse head, or something else), I put down the hat.

Next I picked up a small ball of Rowan cotton glace that I got a year ago to make into delicate lace washclothes. (The pattern actually calls for linen, it's the pattern that The Yarnery in St. Paul contributed to Knitter's Stash.) It amused me enough to keep me going, and let me not think about the lovely sock that I'd be ripping out soon.



It's nice, isn't it? Not too demanding, just friendly, quick start, quick finish, and you get to play with a new lace stitch. This one is the lacy vine.

Update: Morning brings courage. I ripped out the hat, the sock, and began both again. The sock is looking and fitting better, and the hat is cast on (smaller needles this time).

This is my last morning of peace for 2 months -- summer school/camp ends tomorrow with performances, then flying home, then weeks of swimming lessons at 8:15am for the kids. I'm going to go knit.

Tokyo Cost of Living

Today I'm going to share with you a little fun called "How Much Could One Raspberry Really Cost?"

Here's my grocery list for "just a couple things" I picked up today:

Orange juice, 1 liter -- $1.50
6 liters of milk, (i.e. about 3 half-gallons) -- $8.50 total
8 yogurts -- $8.50 total
2 tiny yogurt 4-packs -- $4.00
1/2 loaf of graham bread -- $2.20
4 bananas -- $2.20
6 bagels -- $7.20

Okay, expensive, but not crazy, right? Here comes the kicker:

Bing Cherries, 1 pint -- $11.00
Raspberries, 1/2 pint -- $10.00

I counted the cherries in that container -- 60 of them. After you add the tax of 5% on everything, EACH cherry costs 19 cents. Raspberries are a slightly better bargain -- there's about 70 of them, and that makes EACH raspberry 15 cents. Of course, if you go by weight the cherries are the better deal, even after pitting them.

So, my little trip to get just fruit, bread, and milk for 3 days is over $55.00 US. (Insert gasp here.) The berries will last through breakfast, the cherries through to the end of the day. Then back to the store for more fresh fruit. (Peaches are 2 for $18.00 right now. We're passing on those for a while.)

By the way?? This is the regular grocery store. Not the high-falutin'-gotta-wear-your-diamond-tiara-to-go-shopping one. Not the "we supply fruit to the emperor" one. Not the one that stocks the square melons for $80 - 200 US ("that's just wrong," as my brother would say), it's Just a Grocery Store.

Don't ask about the time I bought a mango without looking at the price tag -- there was a basket of $8.00 mangos, and a basket of $9.00 mangos, and a basket of mangos that looked the BEST, but did not have a price tag on the basket. Reason: each single mango had a price tag, a whopping $28.00 US. I found out when I got home. It *was* an exceptionally good mango. (The other, less expensive mangos were from Mexico and the Philippines, and the super expensive little one was from the southern islands in Japan.)

I'm a lot more careful about reaching into the fruit basket now.

Math for knitting

I love math. There. Hate me if you like, but there you have it. Math is my friend.

When I first began knitting I realized that if I wanted to recreate a picture in intarsia I needed to figure out my exact gauge. I'm a good study, and I knew enough to make a large swatch in the same yarn and the same needles I was planning to use. I took the gauge, put it into Excel, and made myself my own personal gauge chart.

Then I took a large picture of Lightning McQueen, taped it to the window on a sunny day, and put my gauge graph on top of it. Trace, color, and voila! I had my intarsia chart. I didn't let it bother me that I did not have any intarsia experience, I just kept several good knitting books around while I did it, and the results were awesome.

So when I decided I really wanted feather and fan lace socks, I did a big gauge swatch, took out Sensational Knitted Socks that I had ordered expressly for this sock yarn, and began my math journey. Let it be shown that I measured and made notes:


Still, when my gauge said that I was knitting at 9 stitches to the inch, and the sock I wanted to knit in the feather and fan pattern was going to yield a sock that fit either an 8 inch diameter foot or a 10 inch diameter foot, I wasn't sure what to do. I knew I needed to end up with a 9-inch sock that stretched to 9.5 inches.

Actually, deep down I knew that this pattern wasn't going to work with these socks, but I was in denial. This is the yarn, this is the pattern, it will work by the force of my will. I decided to knit the bigger one, but I'd knit it "really tight" and hope my gauge hit 10 or so. I even BENT THE NEEDLES getting it that tight. (The needles work just fine bent, thank you. They conform nicely to my demands.)

I ripped out what I'd begun as my test swatch, and began again with 88 stitches, going for the 10 inch sock, and then realized it was huge. It was going to be 10 inches, but it would be baggy. I ripped back to the toe, and stopped increasing at 66 stitches for the 11 stitch repeat (yes, 77 is probably perfect, but I was believing that I should have the same amount of stitches on each side). Now that I'm halfway up the foot, each time I try it one I realize that OOPS, lace is not very flexible, and even though it fits, it's not roomy. I like roomy. My toes like to breathe.


Isn't it beautiful? It would be perfect for a woman with size 7 or 8 feet in a normal width. Someone like....my mom.

So now the dilemma -- rip back a 3rd time and start with 77 stitches, just putting 3 repeats on the top of the foot until I get to the leg? Rip back a 3rd time and choose a new pattern? Or keep going and give them to my mom?

I'm leaning towards the first one. I love the yarn, and I picked it expressly for myself. I like the pattern. I love my mom, but I don't know if she wants socks. Actually, she'd probably love socks. She's not a big pink person though. She'd love some blue ones, I'll bet. I bet she'd wear them only when her feet were in the air, and take them off before they touched the ground.

Don't you LOVE how I can justify keeping the socks for myself?

On another note, my big Japanese calligraphy test is this month, and I've finished my submissions for that test. I'm hoping to do well -- I'm particularly pleased with the left two. For those not familiar with Japanese calligraphy (shodo), these pieces of paper are about a foot wide and about 4.5 feet long. I grind the ink by hand, and have to get the color right. There are all sorts of things that make shodo "beautiful" that would be considered mistakes in many other forms of art. The ink trailing off in an intermittent streak -- it's called "kasure" and it is a very desired effect. The changing of the ink's tone, the addition of fresh ink in a spot that is NOT at the top of the paper, and in an appropriate break in the poem -- all these things are considered. I have a very good teacher who tells me exactly how to write it.



I won't know until August or even September if I go up a level. It's like karate or judo -- you get different rankings as you go on! My husband likes to say that I'm a black belt in shodo.

Packing starts now....

Here in Tokyo we are supposedly in the midst of rainy season, and it has rained about 3 times in 2 weeks. Not very rainy. What it IS is hot and humid.

This is okay, because I know I'm getting on a plane and going to Minnesota for the summer, where at least it is hot and humid with cool nights. Or sometimes it's hot and not humid (like last summer). Or it can be just plain cold.

So, what is in my suitcase for the summer in Minnesota. (Mind you, I already have my yarn stash there waiting for me, and a stack of the knitting books I own in Tokyo already placed on reserve to check out at the library there.)

Swimming suits, tank tops, shorts. No surprise. Jeans, khakis, summer dresses, sandals. Here's what might surprise some: Sweatshirts, fleece, sweaters. Warm socks. If you've even been in Minnesota in August, you know that if you don't pack the fleece, you will end up buying one. That's why the kids have sweatshirts that say "LEECH LAKE" on them from two summers ago. (Yes, Leech Lake is a real place.) We also have warm clothing that says "MINOCQUA" from last summer.

I figure it's okay, because I fondly remember wearing out a KOA sweatshirt from some family vacation many many years ago. It was too cold to swim in the swimming pool (according to my mom, who was probably right, but I remember desperately wanting to jump in a pool anyway). Not having enough warm clothes is a summer tradition.

What else is in the suitcase? The kids' clothes that they've grown out of. We bring it back and pass it on to family and friends and whoever needs it. Then we bring back the new stuff with us to Tokyo in August.

I bring seaweed (the kids snack on it, although I still find it a bit strange to eat it as a snack), some Japanese candy (milk candy), but not a whole lot.

It's so fantastic to travel to the US, because here's what's going on in my brain as I pack:

"Did I pack sunscreen? Oh, gosh, I don't know. Should I bother looking? I can get it there if I forgot to pack it."

(Substitite "sunscreen" with shorts, socks, ponytail holders, shampoo, etc -- it doesn't matter, it's ALL available.) When we travel to other places we have to THINK when we pack. Not when we go "home." When we travel to other places we bring loads of books for storytime, craft things, movies, whatever. When we go home, we stop by the library and pick up 50 books, and the grocery stores are open 24 hours (a thing of joy!), and Target is such a wonderful place I get tears of happiness just walking in.

We have an arrival tradition: the first night we are in the US we invariably wake up at 2am, jet-lagged, and we go to the grocery store. The kids love the truck-carts, and we go up and down every single aisle. We don't buy the gimicky stuff (don't get me started on fruit gummies and how many different child-appealing packages they can put the same sugary crap in), we don't buy the sugar cereals, but we get fruit and veggies and cereal and milk and ice cream and juice and eggs and whole grain bread, and it's all so AVAILABLE and (if you pick the right store) so GOOD. By 3am we've had our fill, we go back home, put the groceries away, perhaps have a bowl of cereal, and go back to sleep.

I'm coming home soon, and I can't wait.

P.S. For my family members -- I'm really coming to visit you guys, not just to stroll down the aisles of the grocery stores at 2am. Really.

Five is a big big number

And as hard to believe as it is, my little boy is FIVE. Most of his friends are already five, so for him it’s a “finally!” kind of thing, and short-lived, too, since in 3 months we’ll begin the 6th birthday party celebrations for friends.

But for me, the mommy, this is my youngest, and five is so much bigger than four. FIVE is the age you go to kindergarten. FIVE is half a decade. FIVE is a whole hand’s worth of fingers. FIVE is just a number, but wow, it’s FIVE!

A picture of the castle cake, after being pillaged by the family pirates. (Rules: no utensils allowed!)



Happy Birthday Big Big Boy!

Fun with Swift and Winder

MORE! MORE! Can we do some more?? PLEASE?

My children have discovered the joy that is making skeins turn into center pull balls!

I used to have to beg someone to be the arms to hold the skein while I made the center skein ball. Too many times I ended up using a chair. Then, I found a wonderful shop on eBay that would send a ball winder and a swift to me in Tokyo, and I ordered it. YIPPEE! I love eBay. I love everyone who will ship international.

So the winder and swift have arrived, and for two whole weeks I have not needed to wind anything. Then last night I found a messy ball in my newly organized stash and figured I'd have a go at my new winder. Enter children (they must have sensed my excitement?) and LOOKIE HERE, it's fun for the whole family! After that one ball, we had to wind another one.


And then just for grins I got out a sock skein, and set up the swift. They were so impressed, and looked at all the arms stretched out, and they were even more impressed when they saw that it would actually turn. My 4yo said, "It's just like watching Earth turning around!"

To make it fair, we have to count how many seconds each person gets to turn the crank and watch the swift go around. The joy is occasionally paused for me to say, "Whoa, slow down there, cowboy." They love the variegated yarns, and get into a trance-like mode watching the colors change as the yarn is wound.

I swear it's as relaxing as a massage for them. They breathe more slowly, and go into a zone. It's wild. But then, look at these gorgeous colors -- Yarntini in Cherry Cordial. Yum. Who wouldn't get into a zone looking at that? More about Yarntini later.

On a totally different note, here are more flowers from my garden -- I have no idea what these are, but they are especially plentiful this year. We've had hot days and not a lot of rain (although theoretically it's been "rainy season" for about 10 days now).


Back to Yarntini. So, if I weren't such a mature person, I'd be dancing around singing a na-na-na-na-na-na song -- I scored some yarn here in Tokyo that sold out the first day in the US. Yarntini sent a note to its fans advising us to watch the Sweet Sheep website -- that they would be available the next day. Every time I checked, they weren't posted yet. I checked the next day, and WHOOPS, they are all gone.

I call the local yarn store when I've heard that they sell Addis and sock yarn as a hobby, sort of under the counter (remember the post with the secret spy stuff and code words?) I wasn't sure if I needed a special handshake or not. Turns out, they have 6 colors of Yarntini, and they are also selling the Addis for 1500 yen. That's about $12.50 right now. It rocked my world. I've been sending my husband and visitors all over to score me Addis of various sizes and lengths, and I have a source right here, about a 5 minute bike ride from my house.

So, the nice person who answers the phone remembers me (it's rather easy to remember a Japanese-speaking blonde woman who comes into a yarn store with a very well-behaved small child who knows not to touch yarn, but to ooh and aah over it politely, and then play cars on the floor quietly), and she agrees to bring some yarn and needles in for a secret hand-off the next day. Only one problem with the needles -- they only have 1 size zero. I want two. She says, "no problem, I'll just teach you the magic loop way."

So, right here in my backyard, I scored 3 skeins of Yarntini, 2 pairs of Addis (100cm size 1 and size 0), and a lesson in Magic Loop knitting *and* Judy's magic cast on. The yarn shop woman (my new best friend, I hope I can find out her name) even found pages out of KNITTY to do so, and the Baudelaire pattern as well.

Meet the newest additions to the s(t)ockpile: Cherry Cordial, 4-8-15-16-23-42 (gotta love that), and Appletini.



What, you'd like a better view of the 4-8-15-16-23-42?


And one more of the Appletini?


Did I mention that I happened to buy some other yarn, too? After all, I have all that extra room in my 3rd stash cupboard.

Knit for pleasure or fame?

Regarding yesterday's post: What do you do if something you like doesn't turn out as planned?

Do you rip it out?

Do you live with it?


I ask because I am of the perfectionist realm, where if I know it's not perfect, it's going to bother me. I don't mind ripping stuff out to get it right (although mohair is no picnic).

My dear husband can't stand to see me rip things out -- "But it's DONE!" he says. "But it's not right!" I say. He can't stand to see the work go to waste. I think it's sweet that he values my work so much. Still, I'd rather get it right, and rip back to do it. He and my daughter both think I should finish the sock. (But then I'd have to make another one just like it, and if no one wants the first one, wouldn't it be better to frog the first and make two that I want?)

I also had an interesting conversation with another knitter a month or so back -- why do you knit for other people?

I knit for the fun of it, and to think about the person I'm knitting for. I love knitting baby things, and I love knitting for my kids. I like knitting small things as gifts. I also tell the receiver that when I give a gift to someone that it is just that -- a gift, and that I made it for them and I'm releasing it. I hope they like it, but I did it for the joy of making something for someone important to me.

That, and also to prevent me from eating a pound of m&ms while watching tv after the kids go to bed. But mostly the love part.

Half a pair of socks

Not too long ago, I bought a ball of sock yarn in Tokyo -- which is harder to do that you might believe. Anyway, lovely purples and greens, and this was a sock destined for my feet.

Enter my first grade daughter. "Is that for MY socks?" she asks, as she's been asking for socks since I knit some for her brother. I promise her, yes, they are for her. Later, she chooses the Nemo sock yarn, then rejects that as it's too scratchy. Little brother gets a SECOND pair of socks (which is good, because the first pair were really not the greatest).

I start in on the green and purple pair for her -- a very loose twist, these socks are knit tightly on 1s (since I had no 0s), and I've been trying the sock on her as we go. "I LOVE it!" she says as the sock is a cuff on her leg. "I LOVE it!" she says as the leg is nearly complete and the heel flap finished. "I LOVE it!" she says as the sock's gusset is finished, and I'm heading down the finish line to the end of the toes. I knit this sock at Tokyo Disney Sea.

I knit this sock on a bus and a train on a Saturday night. I knit this sock in the car on the way to the bike paths (yep, we have to drive to get to the bike paths).

Last night, as I was finishing the toes, I had her try it on for the 10th time to make sure that the length was right. The fit was perfect. The sock was 5 or 6 rows from the very end.
She has it on her foot....she gets a look on her face....and she says, "It feels a little too tight here. And I don't like it here."

Now the last thing I want to do is make a second sock when the first is not loved. And I'm not going to finish this one and break the yarn unless she loves it. So I tell her (and I really mean it), "It's totally okay if you don't like it. I will take it apart and make a sock for me out of the same yarn if you don't like it. I will make you something else, and you don't need to worry about it."

She is relieved, and tells me, "Good, because I like it, but it's really scratchy, and I like it, but I don't want to wear it," and she has this idea instead: that I should knit the second sock as well, and then sell them for $5 and give the money to Room to Read , (an amazing charity that we are working as a family to make money for with read-a-thons and lemonade stands). She tells me that I should make a LOT of them. Nice idea, but at $30 a skein, I'd be knitting myself into the poorhouse. She suggests that we sell them for $35 a pair. I suggest that so many hours of my time is worth more than $5, and that I also don't think anyone is going to pay $100 for a pair of socks (and even then I never worked for so cheap!) I change the subject and ask her what she'd like me to knit for her. She points to the scarf I just finished as a present, and wants "socks make out of that soft yarn there."



Is it possible to make socks out of polymide thick and thin bumpy yarn with a suggested needle size of 7mm? Would you want to?

I'm SO organized!

So organized? ME?

Yes, I spent valuable and well-spent hours and many ziplock bags organizing the stash. It's now organized by fiber type (in general), by amount of same skeins (in general), and it's ALL put away.

Here is proof!

Stash Drawer 1 -- wools, Malabrigo, Noro, Manos del Uruguay, sock yarn, cotton, Zara, Zarina


Stash drawer 2 -- small quantities of things, lace yarn, alpaca (destined to be Christmas present hats)


Stash cupboard 3 -- large quantities of things, many purchased before I knew what I was doing.... Wool, alpaca, silk, wool cashmere blends, all the fancy acrylics, and a few one-ball-wonders (named such because I wonder what I will ever do with it).


Obviously, I have plenty of room for more yarn. Time? I'm not so sure about time.

Oh, wait, there's my stash in Minnesota, too. That's my summer knitting. (I am a very good planner, and a moderately good executer -- we'll see how much actually gets knitted up.)

The Lei Reborn

Remember the cheap plastic purple lei that I imitated in knitted art?


With urging from someone else that it would be really cute, and JUST what the intended recipient would love (??), I decided to cast on a nice ball of Rowan wool cotton, and go for it. I cast on 100 stitches. Purl one row, kf&b one row. 200 stitches. Purl a row, knit a row, purl a row, kf&b a row. 400 stitches. Continue, adding more circular needles. Remember to knit REALLY tightly, because the yarn calls for a 5 or 6, but you only have multiple circs in size 7 (Japanese size 8). Knit until the ball of lovely Rowan is finished (800 stitches). NOW add the plastic lei stuff -- hey, it doesn't look so bad. By this time there have been several repeats of the kf&b, and there are now 1600 whopping stitches spanning FOUR size 7 circular needles, with some size 7 dpns ready in case they become necessary.



A closeup of the stitches:


It's probably not surprising that it took me 3 evenings to sit through binding off 1600 stitches. I used a size 9 to make sure that I did it loosely enough, and I watched reruns of House to get me through it. I must say that purling 1600 times in a row was my least favorite part of the scarf. I did have to put it down and rest my wrists, so perhaps my purling technique is inefficient.

ANYWAY, it's FINISHED! A friend said that the picture below looks like some kind of flower on the tree. It's a hydrangea! No, it's wisteria! No, it's Ripply Scarf!


Also on the needles are eldest child's new socks -- the colors are great, but I'm not in love with the low twist of this yarn. Still, this sock came to DisneySea with me on Friday, on a bus and a train Saturday night, and in a long car ride on Sunday, I'm now on the toe.



By the way, knitting on a public bus and then on the Yamanote line? WOW, did I get some stares. I think being a foreigner dressed up to go out for a Saturday night definitely added to the "bizarre" quotient.

On the needles -- a scarf with beads. In my quest to make this, I've discovered two things: that if I don't like a pattern, I have no problem ripping out 2 feet of knitting and starting over, and that there is a better way to knit beads into my knitting than the way it's done here. The next question is: even though I'm not personally thrilled with the beads as they are here, will I rip out that part and then graft on something else? Or will I make the other end in the same way and give it away, knowing that the recipient won't care which way I beaded the knitting?



I discovered one more thing: if you go to the store to buy "some beads for knitting," you may come home with more than beads. (The beads were on the first floor, but the bathroom was on the 5th - and you had to walk past many aisles of new yarn to get to it.)

The Nemo Socks

The Nemo Socks -- finished, and being worn happily -- thick wool socks in 80 degree weather. You gotta love knitting for someone who loves your knitting enough to wear thick wool socks on a hot day. Not only that, but each time they show up in his drawer, they are the socks he chooses.



Here in Tokyo it's Busy Busy Busy -- as the school year comes to an end there are many gatherings -- there are sayonara parties, there is late night dancing, there are birthday parties. People having "one last coffee together before summer," or "one last playdate," and the greeting is not, "Hi, how are you," but instead, "WHEN ARE YOU LEAVING FOR THE SUMMER?"

Yes, the Gaijin Summer is upon us. Tomorrow is the last day of school, and hoardes of foreigners will trek to Narita Airport and get on planes to go home for 2 months, escaping first rainy season, then the hot humidity of Tokyo.

The benefits of the rain are not many in my opinion, but here's my favorite:

This lovely hydrangea is one I planted myself. I love the hydrangeas in Japan -- the colors and varieties are amazing.

Tired of socks yet?

So, tired of sock yarn yet?

I'm not. Just before my brother arrived, I ordered a pack of 6 skeins of Opal sock yarn from the nicest woman on eBay. She packed them beautifully, added two candies, and sent them off from Germany to Japan. They are the "Lollipop" colors, and as soon as my kids saw them they immediately picked which skeins would become their socks. (Of course they are the same 2 skeins that I was hoping to make into MY socks.)



Can you guess which two the little kids picked? Yep. The colorful ones that actually look like a fun stripey lollipop.


Mousie is a patient backdrop, and partial to the bright ones as well.



I'm still on the 2nd Nemo sock (same place as last night), but I took a break to attempt to make a fun scarf -- and I hated it. I cast on some random number of stitches -- perhaps 18 inches worth -- and proceeded to knit in garter stitch with shiny purple yarn (yes, I should have known what it would end up like), and then double my stitches every few rows to make a swirly twirly scarf. What a great idea -- and what a joke. After 6 rows it looked like a cheap fake purple plastic Hawaiian lei. I plodded on -- I don't know how many stitches I cast on, but let's say about 60. After doubling 3 times, I had 480 stitches on my needle, and it still looked awful. I knit a few more rows and then cast off, hoping that the twirl would change everything.




It didn't.



It still looks like a cheap purple Hawaiian lei. Don't believe me? Check THIS picture out. Which one took 90 minutes of my life, and which one took 17 cents of my money?

Sock race!

So yesterday I promised pictures of the unstoppable sock -- here is the sock in its earliest sock stages, crossing the finish line! Yippee for the sock! Yippee for the understanding husband who thought I was amusing and not just deranged!


That's the grounds of the Imperial Palace behind us.

The family at the finish line -- notice kids with scooters -- I think it was the only way to ensure that we wouldn't have to carry them for part of the 5K. It was a hot hot day. After that, we walked to Tokyo station to put my brother on the train to the airport. Another 2K. Then a few more K getting back to the tent and the car.

From here to a birthday party, and then home to veg with Dominos delivery and Finding Nemo. (One of the reasons that the socks are now dubbed the Nemo socks.)

So that was Saturday noon -- would you believe that I'm turning the heel of the second sock tonight -- Tuesday? I *KNEW* if I had more sock yarn that I'd be knitting socks like a madwoman.

Only downfall? No one I know has actually expressed any desire to wear handknit socks. I know, this is probably a good thing, because I have so many relatives I'd never get there. Still....looks like just me and the kids.

Looky-looky

So in one month we've had 3 visitors. That's a personal record. That's a month in which I have limited computer access, since our computer room IS our guest room, and vice versa.

Also, visitors means YARN PRESENTS! My visitors are all very skilled in this area, and brought fun and lovely things. We've already seen what dear brother-in-law brought (Cherry Hill Sock Yarn, yeah, baby!) and the lovely socks that came straight from that.

My mother-in-law brought fun yarn -- all kinds! I can't wait to see what I'll do with it -- perhaps some fun poncho with ribbons, or using that ribbon yarn for fringe. Can't tell yet!


THEN, my brother came last week -- and yippee yahoo, he brings several skeins of sock yarn and a new Addi Turbo. Truly manna from heaven. These are all skeins from the article about favorite sock yarn in this season's Interweave Knits.


See these? One is a wool and bamboo mix -- how cool is that? And another has aloe in it -- now that's fun knitting. (Yes, I do amuse myself sometimes.)

Now this one below -- THIS SOCK RAN A 5K.

Yep. Well, okay, actually it WALKED a 5K. Somewhere in this world, there are pictures of me crossing the finish line WHILE KNITTING. This is perhaps the "coolest" or "most loser-like" knitting thing I've done, depending on your point of view. My husband was moderately amused. I give him serious points for walking right next to me as if EVERYONE knits in a fun run.

The sock in this picture has since been finished, and its mate has been started. And let me tell you that I'm a little concerned about whether or not the orange vertical stripes on the first sock will come out similarly on the second sock. After all, this sock has been dubbed the "Finding Nemo" sock, given its orange and white vertical stripes, its deep blue ocean stripes, and the yellow and white flecked part, which my son has deemed "the sunshine." I'd better go and knit some more and see how it comes out.