First off, Yarnival! Today’s the last day to submit.

Second, meet Igor:

What a cutie! He arrived on Monday, but it’s been too rainy to photograph him until today. I’ve long admired Maritza’s softies, and I happily snagged a mantis when they were in the shop last week.

Third:

I put some food out for Blackie #3 a couple of nights ago, and went to check on her as she ate (there’s another cat sauntering about that we’re trying not to feed). It was dark out, and when I flicked on the light I found these guys eating the food:

I’m almost 100% sure that they aren’t B3’s, unless she had them before we started feeding her (and she hid them from us this whole time). These guys are kind of feral in that they hiss like crazy at us, but they’ve become much more chill over the past day and a half.

I took them in for a checkup this morning, and they seem to be in relatively good health. The tortie and calico are girls and the rest boys, and they weigh between 1 and 1.5 pounds each. So teeny! We’re going to be fostering these guys for the time being – every no-kill place in the area is full or not really no-kill, and we don’t want to just dump these guys off at the SPCA.

Anyone local and want a kitten? Seriously, take two.

I’ve been meaning to pile up all my works in progress and blog about them here to guilt myself into action, but I have been completely unmotivated to do so. So much for finishing most of them before the end of summer. But, summer doesn’t really end in Texas until some time in November, so I guess I’ve got a few months to actually finish something.

Before:

Petal used to look like an almost-complete sweater. I even seamed everything except for one sleeve, and all the ends were woven in.

Now:

The fit was bad enough to frog pretty much the whole sweater. The worst offender was completely my fault – I went up a size for the hip measurement, because I thought that my hips Are Not Shaped Like That. But as it turns out? They are! You knit the bottom band sideways, and then pick up stitches for the body. The picked-up-stitches measurement seemed pretty small, so I went up a size. However, that bottom band is a few inches wide, so the picked-up-stitches location was a few inches up from the bottom of the sweater, and going up a size made the sweater seem baggy and kind of frumpy.

I’d rather rip and redo this sweater than create yet another sweater that I never wear. I’ve already reknit the front, and the crumply yarn above is the back, waiting its turn. I did salvage the bottom band – it has less stretch (because it’s knit sideways) than the body of the sweater, so the size larger band feels like it fits perfectly.

In addition to knitting the right freaking size, I added about an inch of short row bust shaping (and could have done more), and fixed the top triangles. The sweater as knit is not going to cover my bra straps – they stick out where the top of the front piece meets the bottom of the triangles. I decided to work the triangles attached to the front piece, and they are 8 stitches wider at their base than the pattern calls for.

This is my main project right now, so hopefully I can finish it before the theoretical winter comes to this state.

Cambridge Jacket for Rob. Meh. I have a sleeve and a back and a half knit. I think my gauge was off, hence the back reknitting, but it’s been so long that I really don’t remember. I think this is going to get frogged in favor of a seamless hybrid. Those always turn out nice. The cool thing about digging this out is that I found my size 8 knitpicks tips and two 24 inch cords. I thought I had a monster in my closet eating all my 24″ cords, but here they were the whole time.

The new kid on the block: the Tangled Yoke Cardigan. I’ll be using Rowan Cashcotton DK for this – from the stash! Boo yah, no yarn buying for me! I was thisclose to buying some of the big Webs Jaeger closeout, but I recently reorganized my stash and remembered how many sweater amounts of yarn I have. I think I’m going to provisionally cast on the yoke stitches and knit the yoke first because it’s the fun part!

Questions for y’all (see, I’m texan, right?):

1. How much ease do you put into cardigans? I’m between two sizes of the Tangled Yoke, and I’m wondering how little ease I can go before the buttonband is going to gape. I’ll likely be wearing this with a very light layer underneath, so I’m not too worried about it being a layering piece over something bulky.

2. Have you submitted your goods to Yarnival! yet?

Oh, and I’ve also suddenly stopped receiving my wordpress comment emails. Wah! So if you don’t hear from me (like I’m ever on top of my email in the first place), now you know why. !@#$!

The people have spoken, so here it is – how I create my knitting charts using 100% free software. Some of this requires some technical knowledge, and I’m doing all of this on a mac, so your mileage may vary.

If you’re really serious about charting, you’d probably be best dropping the money for a program that does all the hard work for you. I downloaded the trial version of Knit Visualizer, and it looks very good. The main reason I’m using these tools (besides cost) is that I really wanted to use some of my own symbols in these charts.

Step 1: Download a knitting font

There are a few free options for knitting fonts out there:

1. Knitter’s Symbol fonts, from Knitter’s magazine.
2. The fonts on the knittingsoftware yahoo group. There are two – JKnit and LaceKnit.
3. Knitting Font from Aire River Design. Amy told me about this one – I haven’t tried to install it.

Option 1 looks best if you’re charting something with cables – I don’t think there are many cable options in the knittingsoftware fonts. However, I’m adapting a chart from a Japanese pattern book, so I chose to start with the JKnit font.

There’s one last issue with the knittingsoftware fonts – they are Windows-only. We’ll need a converter to get them working on the mac. Enter FontForge.

Step 2: Macify the font and add extra symbols, if necessary

If you’re a mac user spoiled by the pretty UI, you’ll hate Font Forge. However, it’s extremely useful for converting a windows font to mac format. There has to be a better, free way of doing this, but I haven’t looked in to it in depth – I stumbled upon Font Forge when looking for a font editing program and got the font converting portion for free. If you know of a better method, let me know!

If you’re using a mac font and don’t need extra symbols, then you can skip this step.

Font Forge has a few dependencies to get it installed. First, you’ll need X11. It comes on the OSX install discs, or you can also download it from the developer area of the mac website. If you’re creating font symbols, you’ll also need some sort of image library so that you can import a picture of your symbol in the background. I used Fink to download libpng.

You can find instructions for downloading and installing Font Forge on their website. It comes as a dmg and is straightforward to install. Once it’s installed, you can open the downloaded JKnit font, then do a File > Generate Fonts, and select ‘TrueType (mac format)’. This creates a dfont file that makes Font Book happy.

If you’re editing symbols, then you’ve got a bit of work ahead of you. Font Forge has a pretty decent tutorial to get you started. Font editing is a tedious, anal retentive process. Have fun!

Step 3: Openoffice

This part? So not my idea. There’s excellent instructions on charting with Excel on Fleegle’s blog, and Marnie has a two part series on creating lace charts with excel. One thing I do that’s not mentioned on these tutorials is that I first create a small key of all my special symbols off to the side, then cut-and-paste them into place on my chart. I find that much easier dealing with the Special Character dialog for any length of time.

Openoffice is free but the mac port definitely a work in progress. There’s lots of quirks, like you can only open a file via File > Open (can’t double-click a file to open it), the application quits when you close the last open window, etc etc. It also crashes occasionally, but I’ve never lost data – they have built in a good file recovery mechanism. Whatever, it’s free and it works.

Hopefully someone finds this information useful!

Sock #1: Plain Ol’ Stripey.

Socks + stray, again. The yarn is Yarn Pirate in Hannah, in her way-back-when original base yarn. Where way back when is about six months ago. I knit these on US0 needles, and got about 9.75 sts/inch. I really, really like the thinner socks – they were a bitch to finish, but I think I’ll be more likely to wear them than my thick Koigus.

These are plain old toe-up sockinette socks with a three-inch ribbed cuff. Woo. I had some fit issues around the heel my first go around, so I increased 12 stitches before working the short-row heel, then decreased those stitches after the heel. Specifically, I chose a center stitch on each side and increased on each side of it, every four rows, three times, worked a few rows, worked the heel (which included half of the increased stitches), then worked decreases similarly. The increases caused the stripes to get all flashy on me – not so noticeable from the top view, but very obvious from the side. The things I do for fit.

Sock #2: Mad Color, indeed.

I loved Stacey’s Mad Color Weave socks, and mine are going to be more similar to hers than I originally thought.

This is the point at which I ran out of yarn. I extended the leg by a couple of pattern repeats because the cuff as written is way short, but my toes are going to be cold this way. I have some leftover chocolate brown yarn from these socks and a skein of berry sock yarn that might match, so I have options.

I’ve even grown to love the barfy Koigu colorway. It looks much nicer outdoors, a place I don’t travel to very often this time of year. I keep reading about people starting to feel an autumnal chill in the air and I am insanely jealous. The only chill we feel around here is from the blasting air conditioner.

Sock #3: Finally writing up that damn pattern.

I finally waded through the sea of free, buggy software to create some charts for the Ironwork Socks. Yeah! I’ve been going back and forth about selling the pattern or giving it away for free. I’m completely undecided about this. I’ll probably go the lazy route and give it away. The hardest part about this whole process has been creating new font characters for some of the japanese symbols and one kelly-created knitting maneuver.

Why all the socks these days? Besides my desires for some Wollmeise, now, a certain purple sweater is getting reknit. Details next time.

Don’t forget about Yarnival!, submit your August yarny action here.

I’ll be editing the next installment of Yarnival!, and announcing a call for submissions for the Septermber issue!

Yarnival!?

Yarnival! is a blog carnival about knitting, the brainchild of Eve at Needle Exchange. It’s essentially a monthly collection of links to the goings-on in the knitting world, compiled from your submissions.

You can see a list of all previous issues here (click on the “past posts” tab).

What should I submit? (shamelessly stolen from Eve’s original description)

Any knitting/spinning content that you believe represents your best work from the past month or so. Pretty much any ol’ cool thing you wrote about in August. It should be at least vaguely knitting-related; the kind of things that really stood out for me this time was original work, witty or insightful commentary, and pretty pictures. Please, don’t be afraid to submit your work. It couldn’t hurt to put yourself out there.

How do I submit?

Post your submission on the blogcarnival website (pretty please don’t post them here). The deadline to submit is September 1st, and Yarnival! will be published on September 15th.

Send your loves, hates, and all that’s fibery fun in the sun. Come on, we all know you’re still knitting in the crazy hot temps. Show it off!

Yarn for all and all for Yarnival!

100 degree temps (plus humidity, of course) are not terribly conducive to knitting. All I can manage to deal with right now is socks. And cats.

Putting the Mad Color in Mad Color Weave. This is Nate’s Koigu, which looks about 87% better in the skein. This photo is flattering, in real life looks quite barfy. And it’s pooling, so it’s more colorful barf on one side, and more pinky-peachy on the other. I’ve already frogged this, twice – first it was too loose on US2 needles, then I mistakenly reknit it on US1. US1.5 will be perfect, really.

The Yarn Pirate socks! Started in February and abandoned because stockinette tubes are boring. Also, the stitches were all stretched around the ankle area, so I increased before the heel and decreased afterwards, which fits perfectly. You can see the stretching in the right sock above, which has already been frogged back to the heel. This is the first of my lagging UFO list, which I’ll be posting here over the next week to guilt myself to actually finish lingering projects. Once the heat dissipates.

And yeah, that cat isn’t Joe. That’s a stray that we’re maybe sort of feeding, mostly because he’s the boyfriend cat of the stray cat that we’re really feeding. Yes, we’re going to rent a trap and get both of them fixed, even though I’ve been musing about what cute kittens they’d have. We’re calling them Blackie #2 and Blackie #3. Not that we’ve named them or anything.

I’ve also solved all of my short-row heel problems by picking up the wraps a different way. Above right: bad, gappy heels. Yuck. Above left: pick up the wraps the wrong way – it’s mentioned briefly in the misocrafty tutorial, but you pick up the wraps from right-to-left, which essentially twists them as you pass them over the knitted stitch. The twisty wraps create the diagonal seam lines, which I’m learning to love. Twisted wraps also means no holes, and this is my go-to heel method from now on.

One other reason for all the socks? I want to buy some Wollmeise sock yarn, now. My original knit-from-stash decree says I can’t buy yarn until I knit three pairs, and I’m being a good girl by following my own advice. The Ironwork Socks count as #1, and I hope to have these two pairs done by the end of the month.

Ooh, also, I rock! I’ve been nominated as a

by Sew-Mad, Soknitpicky, and Emilee. Yay! I’m not going to nominate 5 people, because you all? You rock. Even the boys.

Just a quickie post to let the internets know that I got my Sockapalooza socks! I got a package in the mail from Finland, and I wasn’t really expecting a lot of any international mail this week, so I dug into that package faster than you can say sockapalooza. Pikku-Kettu sent the most lovely pair of Hedera’s one’s ever seen and they fit perfectly! See all the details on her post about them, including a much more accurate representation of the color.

Also, Leah received my socks this week. Yay for sockapalooza!

It’s Houston in summer. It’s too hot to play outside. Icky sticky ew. And so, I huddled inside on Sunday, put on my npr podcasts, and got my stitch on.

The Simple Bib from Behind-the-Rules Sewing, photographed on the bias to disguise the wonky topstitching. Very, very simple – I think it took me more time to enlarge the pattern at my local photocopy place than it took to sew this. All it needs is a snap.

Next up, a box bag, tutorial here. I figured this should be easy peasy, given that it’s all straight seams. Surely this should be easier than the bunny, right?

Yes, I proceeded to sew it together the wrong way. You cut a rectangle and install a zipper, and I made pretty much the only mistake that’s possible with this pattern. I also used an invisible zipper, which looks just plain silly. I didn’t even consider that I could be putting this together incorrectly until I was completely done.

Compared to a real box bag:

Yeah. I’ve got a fabulous pencil case.

Or the perfect sock yarn cozy. Insert your favorite cylindrical object here.

Pattern: Big Footed Bunny, available here.
Fabric: The pants fabric is from Superbuzzy, the rest is misc cotton purchased locally

I like to think that my knitting is somewhat solid, execution-wise. Unfortunately I’m lacking in any sort of sewing skills, so we won’t be showing any closeups of bunny details. Take, for example, his club foot. Was it a sewing mishap or a poor stuffing job by yours truly? Who knows! And we won’t speak of the frankenstein-esque scar on his ass where I hand-stitched him shut. Good thing this bunny has pants.

When Mr. bunny isn’t propped up against our porch, you can see that his ears are floppy. Too floppy. The pattern said to stuff lightly, but I way understuffed. The ears back makes the bunny looks like our cat Joe when he’s up to something mischievous.

I cut the pieces out a few months ago and gradually pieced the bunny together over the past few weeks. I learned to really use my iron for this little guy, and that definitely made things a lot easier. Ironing is fun! The pattern is clearly written and easy to follow, but I’d say that it’s somewhat challenging to execute. I followed it to a T, only making minor modifications in embellishment – the eyes are embroidered rather than using buttons, and I left the suspenders off of the pants (they didn’t need them to stay up). I definitely did a bit of fudging to get things to work, including hand-stitching his widow’s peak to make it neat looking. My fabric frayed like crazy, and there were little wisps and threads that were itching to escape around the bunny’s face.

If you’re going to sew this pattern, you should seam the inner ears and topstitch the hands first – they look best using thread that matches the lighter fabric. Following the instructions in order leads to frequent machine rethreadings, which makes my old Kenmore 8 very cranky. I really need to get the machine serviced – rethreading the bobbin throws off the machine tension, and I spend forever mucking with it to get things evened out again.

Bunny butt!

Fabric wise, I chose the same pants fabric that the girl bunny in the pattern is wearing, total coincidence! The brown body fabric was a bit of a mistake – I chose it because the color was right, but it’s a cotton-poly blend and is somewhat thin and drapey. Drapiness isn’t such a good choice for softies, as every lump and bump of the stuffing is readily apparent.

Blackie wasn’t quite feeling the love. Hopefully baby-in-law (born last weekend, eep, I’m a bit late with the gifts) will heart the bunny!