Two Guinness to the Wind

He he.

With two Guinness in me, I think I've come up with an excellent and unique use for twitter.

A knitting pattern distribution method.

Imagine the following set of tweets:

(NOTE: the user name tipsyknitter did not exist on twitter as of 10:48 pm EST on Saturday June 13, 2009.)

tipsyknitter Hey, I made a scarf! Wanna KAL? Pattern follows!

tipsyknitter with bulky and large needles, CO 20 sts [Edited to note this should be 19 sts. Obviously, this is one of the big reasons tweeting patterns wouldn't work.]

tipsyknitter knit 4-6 rows, start wavy pattern. Wavy pattern is next 20 rows.

tipsyknitter R1 (RS): k3, [p1, k1, Right Twist]3x, p1, k3

tipsyknitter R2 and all even rows (WS): k3, [k1, p3]3x, k4

tipsyknitter R3: k3, [p1, Right Twist, k1]3x, p1, k3

tipsyknitter R5: k3, [p1, k1, Right Twist]3x, p1, k3

tipsyknitter R7: k3, [p1, Right Twist, k1]3x, p1, k3

tipsyknitter R9: k3, [p1, k3]3x, p1, k3

tipsyknitter R11: k3, [p1, Left Twist, k1]3x, p1, k3

tipsyknitter R13: k3, [p1, k1, Left Twist]3x, p1, k3

tipsyknitter R15: k3, [p1, Left Twist, k1]3x, p1, k3

tipsyknitter R17: k3, [p1, k1, Left Twist]3x, p1, k3

tipsyknitter R19: k3, [p1, k3]3x, p1, k3

tipsyknitter repeat above 20 rows until desired length.

tipsyknitter Knit another 4-6 rows to finish.

tipsyknitter add fringe if desired.

tipsyknitter send me some pics!

Did I mention I was knitting while drinking the second Guinness? Maybe I should have mentioned that. That might explain why my megalomania did a knitting/twitter mash-up. Well, it explains the knitting, not much can explain the twitter.

I mean, really, this wouldn't really work in real life, would it? You'd have to be the Yarn Harlot to have enough people following you to be even noticed, right?

(I'm still sure I could do a sock pattern in a series of tweets.)

2 FOs

Well, let's see...really, this post is mostly about ripping.

I'm in the middle of the foot of a pair of socks and I realized I have to frog because the twist in the yarn changed and it looks hideous.

I finally picked up my Mystery Stole 3 and realized, after figuring out where I was and putting in another lifeline, that I need to frog back to my last lifeline. So instead of being at the beginning of clue 4 I will be back at the beginning of clue 3.

While looking for my camera I unearthed, again, the sweater I have to take apart so that I can finish putting it back together.

But my dear sweetheart spotted my camera and I have photos. I put them up on Flikr to show him how nifty Ravelry is. After showing him how easy it is to add a photo to a project, I discovered that at the moment there's a bug that's making it impossible to use stash yarns on a project. Even so, he did wander off a bit overwhelmed by the amount of programming that's gone on over there.

If his point of view seems odd, I might add that we'll be at YAPC this year.

But I do have two finished objects to show you. Let's see if I can figure out how to do the Flickr photo thing here.

Fingerless gloves in Schaefer Anne:



Socks in Regia Silk (I only made one sock blocker for photos):



A close-up of pattern #76 from my Japanese 300 knitting patterns book:

The Tofutsie Sock

Ok, I've got pictures, finally.

This is my Tofutsies sock. Oh, don't worry - I have a pair. I always make two at once on a long circular needle. I've even knit them together once or twice.



Here's a close-up of the top. I've twisted it a little so you can see the whole thing. It's a pattern from one of my Japanese stitch dictionaries.



I started this pair of socks five whole times. The first time, the pattern I used was much too slouchy and obviously wasn't going to stay up. I had turned the heel. I ripped and the re-winding was horrible, because I decided to split the skein into two skeins by weight, and one of my piles fell over. I spent a whole week untangling the mess I'd made. Then I tried again, with a cabled pattern that was so tight I couldn't get it over my heel.

I don't even remember what I did next. Eventually, I realized that top down wasn't going to work for me, so I worked toe-up. When I got to the very end, I dug through my books for a sewn cast-off that would work. The one I eventually settled on was called the tubular bind off and basically is sewn like a kitchner stitch, but you don't need to split your stitches on two needles first.

This sock fits me like a glove. One more stitch and it would be too loose. One less stitch and it would be too tight.

I hope they don't shrink in the wash.

I have another ball of this yarn in a black-and-white colorway. I'm considering making something other than socks from it. Perhaps fingerless gloves? I really haven't decided.

In any event, I'm now making a pair of socks with a nice, boring, knit 3 purl 3 allover rib. I needed something really simple after the Tofutsies socks.

Overdue Pictures

This is my wrist-let class project from the Mittens of Rovaniemi class. I was probably the last person in the class to "get it" and it's thanks to Susanna that she figured out that I had something wrong and what it was. She's a really good instructor. I was impressed.


I will finish the wristlet - I'll even make a pair. But first I'm working on a pair of sock savior socks. Here's a terrible picture.



I got the pattern from one of my Japanese stitch dictionaries. I've got to see if I can get those added to my Librarything account. (I've got maybe ten items added so far and a house full of books, so don't get all excited just yet. I can't even remember my username.) Ravelry will let me upload my Librarything book list, so if I can get it into Librarything, then I should be able to get it into Raverly, and *then* I can get a group going related to them.

Maybe I should check and see if there's a group already.

That's right - I've got to go get myself hooked up with the Mittens of Rovaniemi group...