An FO and Movie Talk

Yeah, I meant to write this earlier in the week. But I was attacked by an extreme case of "I'm SO bored! Therefore I cannot do anything I'm supposed to be doing and must go off in search of something new!" On the plus side, it did allow me to discover Dollhouse.

First, a Finished Object:Name: October Baby Blanket, for Brenda's baby due in (you guessed it) October.
Pattern: Janice's Easiest Ever Lacy Blanket, by Janice Helge.
Yarn: Wister Araeru Merino 100, in color #11, a very nice beige.
Needle: Bamboo Japan size 11 80 cm circular. 80 cm was a bit long, but I'm sure it'll come in handy later.
Finished Measurements: 22" by 27", roughly. The edge is scalloped, so it's a little hard to tell. I would've liked it bigger, but it should be big enough.
Pattern Mods: I added one extra repeat, casting on 108 stitches.
KIP/Movies Watched While Knitting: As previously mentioned on this blog, this blanket was mostly done while watching Battlestar Galactica. Brenda said she would be sure to tell the kid this when the time comes, and considering the dad's level of nerdiness, I have high hopes of geek vibes successfully rubbing off. I don't think I really brought this one into public, though.
Number of Times Frogged: None that I can recall.
Things I Would Change Next Time: I'd add another repeat or two to make it bigger. I didn't use up anywhere near the yarn I bought for it, since I wanted to stop knitting before it became a stole. The pattern didn't give yardage, though, it just listed a yarn, so I looked at the yardage for that yarn and purchased accordingly. It did end up being bigger than the pattern says, but still, I'd have preferred it larger. The pattern is really pretty, though, and I found it to be a quick, pleasant knit. I've even made peace with how much I stretched it, so I think all in all it's a great project.
I also have several WIPs: the Prepster Vest, a hat to match the blanket, and some booties. Prepster is coming along - I'm just splitting for the neck, and have realized what a pain it's going to be to do that in the round, since I will now have to do knit and purl rows until I get to the armpits, and that could change my gauge. The hat I found with a similar look to the blanket is nice, but it seemed to think that I could cast on 54 stitches and then join in the round on a 16" circular, so I ended up casting on loads more stitches and the hat will clearly be too big for a newborn (at least I think so, with my limited baby knowledge). The booties are the Moon Booties again, and after a slight screw-up I finished the first bootie and it looks much bigger than the last pair - the leg is freakin' huge.

Of course, my sense of proportion has been severely screwed up itself since living in Japan. Four-door sedans seem ridiculously huge, pants I hold up in the store that I'm sure will fit can barely be pulled six inches above my knees, much less hips, roads and corners that I'm certain could not possibly accomodate a car can be taken at speed, skeins of yarn with barely 70 yards seem perfectly normal, and I absolutely squeal with delight when there is more than one taller person standing next to me. Maybe this baby, being a child of tall white parents, will have no problem filling the hat and booties with robust Caucasian head and legs. We'll see.

Also, last week I went to see Terminator Salvation on its Japanese opening night. For once, the theater was pretty crowded - Terminator is big in Japan. I loved it. It was different, for sure, and not like the other Terminator movies have been. It wasn't just my appreciation of the plentiful eye candy, or the darling Anton Yelchin making his second appearance in Awesome Movies of This Summer, or even my obsession with apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic movies. I thought it was a great story, interesting characters, and a great direction for the franchise. It seems I might not be in the majority in this view though - while the people I went to see it with also enjoyed it, a friend back in LA has said that everyone she knows who's seen it has hated it, and the internet reviews I've seen all panned it as "having no heart". Well, poo on them, I say. I completely disagree.

Two of the girls that came to see it in my group had never seen any of the first three, can you believe it? They didn't even mention this until we were in the car on the way home, and they were understandably confused about how Christian Bale's father could be some teenage kid he'd never seen. I gave them the ten-minute synopsis of the first three and now I'm dying to watch all four in a row. I would go back and watch #4 (or ST) in the theater again if it wasn't so stupidly expensive and so inconvenient to get to (going on my own would require a fifteen minute bike ride followed by a 25-minute train followed by a shuttle bus, plus the $15 ticket - oh God I want a car again).

Today we're off to see the second Transformers movie. I know, I can't believe I'm going to spend $15 on that mess either, but you just have to see Baysplosions in the theater, right? Also, if the movie pumped billions of dollars into the economy to be made, I guess I can do my part to pump back. And use my money to vote for ludicrous special effects, bad writing, Michael Bay-style entertainment - okay, this is depressing.

Last night in my intense boredom I called my friend Fumiko to see what she was up to, and she told me she was watching Dollhouse. I promptly invited myself over and we stayed up until 2:30 watching it. Damn, that's a cool show. And it has Helo! Hot.

Yarn and Piles of Stuff

Yarn! Delicious, silky soft wool!
This will shortly become the October Baby Blanket, for Brenda's firstborn, due in (come on now, you can guess this one). She hits five months very soon, and in two weeks she's going to find out the baby's gender, as long as the bouncing fetus cooperates for the camera. Either way, this color will go nicely with even the most gender-specific colors and clothes. And since the winters here in Yats are cold and the heating/insulation non-existent, baby will be happy with a wool blanket. I haven't discussed yet how much of a pain in the ass this is going to be to wash with Brenda yet, though. I'm saving that until it's way too late.So as soon as I got the yarn I had to try it out. The pattern calls for size 9s, and the only ones I have are the standard scarf-knitting length, which will clearly not work for a blanket. I cast on some anyway, because if I had to go buy new needles I wanted to be sure that 9 is really the size I want. I was a bit nervous that this yarn was a little too thin for that size, but actually I rather like the way it looks. And it seems to be a quick knit, which will certainly save my skin in the next two months.

Speaking of how much time I have left, I bought my ticket home! SQUEAL! I leave Japan for good on July 29th, stop over in Seattle long enough to make my sister and her husband drive all the way out to the airport to have coffee with me, before moving on to Orlando by way of Detroit, for some reason. Though I leave Tokyo at four in the afternoon on the 29th, I arrive in Seattle at 9:15 am on the 29th, so I gain a whole day - which I then immediately waste almost entirely by flying to Detroit, sitting there for over an hour, and then landing in Orlando at midnight of the same day. So in a way, it's like it only takes seven and a half hours to get to Orlando - by the calendar. In reality, it takes me twenty-three hours, and will seem interminable.

Anyway, I'm going home. Awesome. And once I get there - well, things are going up and down, and I am alternately seriously depressed/worried about finances and starting over, and incredibly elated/thrilled about everything else.

Someone was telling me (I forget who now, so if it was you, bear with me) that this isn't starting over, it's just moving on. This person should definitely be made to be in charge of the packing, throwing stuff away, and then re-buying, re-locating, and re-acquainting me with America, as well as making all my new friends for me. You should see the giant pile of STUFF I've made in the corner that will need to be dealt with. Hang on, actually -And that, my friends, is not even all of what I have to deal with before July. Bleah.

Well, anyway. The Prepster Librarian is coming along swimmingly, even if I am heartily sick of 1x1 ribbing. I've tried it on and realized I will need to make the 1x1 ribbing longer than I originally thought to make it fit the way I want, but that's okay. It is pretty and it will be nice and warm when it's finished.

In other news, Star Trek is coming to Yatsushiro! Yea! And that's what I'm doing next weekend.

I Bought Yarn! Yippee!

I bought the yarn for the Prepster! Yea!Terribly excited. Isn't grey and pink a nice combo? I found this yarn at Tokai Craft Heart, the neat little craft shop inside the Youme Town. It's Wister Araeru Merino 100, an obviously wool yarn that's worsted weight - I think (Ravelry agrees). That's the same as what the pattern calls for, and just to be sure I took some bits of yarn to the store with me, including the clearly too thin Diaepoca.
There's only 78 meters to the skein, so I bought seven of the main color and three of the contrast color. I also bought the other needle I needed - Japan size 6, which is 3.9 mm. The pattern calls for a US size 5, which is 3.75 mm, and US size 7, 4.5 mm. The Japan size 8 is in fact 4.5 mm, but I was concerned about the difference in the Jpn 6 vs. US 5, so I also bought a Jpn 9, which is 4.8 mm (in case you're wondering, a Jpn 7 is 4.2 mm). In any case, I now have a range of needle size choices, which is good because I am finally concerned about gauge. I knit tightly, and I'm going to convert this pattern to a circular one piece rather than two pieces on straight needles, so I think I'll need choices. I have a feeling I'll be starting several times.Of course, I won't be starting at all any time soon, because there is still the leaf blanket to get through, and I am way behind, and for all I know, Sheila is having the baby right now. So today is for laundry and knitting. Perhaps if I am very good, I will allow myself to swatch tonight. But only if I am very, very good.

3/2 Edited for links.

Yarn Travails

So, I went yarn shopping over the weekend.

I spent some time on Friday figuring out possible yarns for the Prepster and the baby blanket that I thought I might be able to find at the craft store I like in Kumamoto city. Thanks to Ravelry, I could scope out some Japanese yarn brands and look at weights in English. I smartly changed the blanket pattern I intended to do, after seeing a note somebody wrote on my #1 choice saying "What was I thinking? This is taking forever." Bad sign when Sheila's due in three weeks. I changed it to the Lace Panel blanket, which called for a size 7 needle, same as the Prepster.

I also tried to work out what needle size I would need if I was going to do the vest in the round - I took the gauge, worked out how many inches each piece would be according to that, and converted the inches to centimeters. 18 stitches to four inches, 80 stitches for the back piece, 80 divided by 18 (4.44), multiply by four (17.78) for the inches, then convert to centimeters (45 cm). Perfect, right? So I thought I'd better go small, and cram more stitches on a smaller needle, than stretch out on a bigger. Something about that process seemed wrong, but I couldn't think what.

About this time was when I first began to clue in that US needle size numbers and Japanese needle size numbers do not match up. I was shocked to discover this, as I had gone along blithely assuming they were the same this whole time, buying and using Japanese needles for US patterns calling for US needle sizes. It hasn't been a problem, really, but still! I felt betrayed. And stupid. I realized I needed Japan sizes 6 and 8 needles, since the pattern calls for US sizes 5 and 7.

Not one to let a little thing like "budget" or "being able to eat for the next three weeks" stop me, I decided to get yarn for the vest and the blanket. I poked around and found Diaepoca. The Diaepoca is Gorgeous (with a capital G, right) and I've been lusting after it since I first went in to that store - I originally thought to do it for the Origami Cardi. They have a huge selection of beautiful colors in this yarn at that store, including an eye-popping dark pink that was perfect for the color scheme in my head. There's also a nice grey. Color cards here (click on Diaepoca, then color sample - mine is 319). The label said it was good for sizes 7-8 needles, and so while it seemed pretty thin, I figured it would work.

Then I looked for the baby yarn, and settled on the Wanpaku Denis, an acrylic wool blend. I realized I had written down the yardage needed but not the meters, and the labels here show meters. Whoops. I decided I would need six skeins for the blanket, to be on the safe side, plus an extra skein for the booties. Seven skeins.


Now, what about the vest? I decided to get the pink yarn now, and come back for the grey later - I couldn't afford all of it. I bought three beautiful, luscious balls of this beautiful, luscious pink. I almost forgot, but quickly went back for the needles - 40 cm Japan sizes 6 and 8. They looked short, but I'd worked it out, so I grabbed them, and went to the register.

Way too much money later, I had oodles of yarn and two new needles, and I was ready to start the blanket and was only six skeins of the main color away from starting the vest! Yippee!

When I got home, it all started to crumble.

First, I pulled out the needles so I could start the baby blanket. I took the size 8, same as the US 7, out of the package. 40 cm. It was tiny. It was incredibly short. It was the same size as the needle I have for a hat. I put it against my waist, trying to imagine knitting a top on it. Fail.

As I wigged out for a moment, I mentally reviewed my calculations and came up with the problem: I calculated for the back piece, forgetting to double it. This despite the whole point being to knit both pieces at once without having to seam. Fail.

Could I start the blanket then? 166 stitches on a 40 cm circular? Fail.

Then, the next morning I did a small swatch of the Diaepoca, since it was just so pretty I couldn't resist. I measured it. 18 stitches over 4 inches? Hah. Try 20 stitches over 3 inches. Fail.

The yarn is too thin. Way too thin. Ravelry says it can be used US sizes 6-8, and it is a DK. Is it me? Probably, but since I'll be knitting the vest, that's the important part. Can I get gauge with this yarn and have it look right? No. Fail.

Now I still need the needles, and the yarn. Fail.

But yesterday I bought a 60 cm size 8 so I can start the blanket, which I did (5 rows, which took ages - not a good sign), and I think that the Tokai Heart store at Youme Town has an adequate yarn for the Prepster, for when I get paid next. And now I have three balls of pink to use for something else.

Win.

Fetching Just Will Not Die.

I started a new project. Yea! After the blanket and the catnip balls were finally finished (but still not mailed - knit gift failure!), I was absolutely itching to start something else, and so I did what anybody does when they're about to start a new project: I stood in the middle of my apartment quivering in indecision two minutes before I needed to leave the house.

Tuesday was a very long and crappy day for me, so Tuesday night I was delighted to go for coffee with the girls. Coffee is our almost weekly trip to Starbucks to sit and gossip/bitch and moan, and since both Katie and Brenda have had me show them how to knit (have I told you about that? I think so...), I feel like this is my public knitting time. Therefore, Tuesday night right before I was to leave for coffee, I needed a project. Projects I need/want to start right now: Brenda's gloves, baby blanket for Sheila's kid, Prepster vest, wristbands, Brenda's headband, Emily's gloves. Do you see why my brain started to melt a bit under the pressure? Of course, I didn't actually have the yarn for any of that, but I tossed some of the leftover Vittoria in a bag, thinking I might do Brenda's gloves in that. By the time we got to Jusco I had nixed that idea, though - acrylic Fetching? I think not.

Luckily, Jusco is also the location of Pandora House, the new craft store that is inexpensive and carries the yarn I used to make Aashima's gloves, which turned out lovely. And who really needs even that much of an excuse to go yarn shopping? Brenda picked out this nice rusty red color, and I've got something fun and brainless to work on. Started it during coffee and continued last night during the first disc of Heroes (new addiction - thank you for your 4 for ¥1000 deal, Tsutaya!). I tried the cables without a cable needle for the first time, thanks to the article that subliminalrabbit cited in her blog. And hey, thanks for the comment! I feel special.

In other news, I bought the pattern for the Prepster Vest. I'm pretty excited about it, but a bit nervous as well. For one thing, I don't really like the way the pattern is written - I've read it through twice and there are bits that don't make a lot of sense to me. I think a chart would be better, honestly. And it's knit in two pieces, which I really don't like. I really hate seaming. I'm going to try to figure out how to do it in the round, because that would make me much happier - seaming = hibernation. Then there's the bit at the bottom of the pattern where it says: This Pattern Is Designed for SWTC Yarn Only.

Well, dang. Does that mean if I do it with something else they'll sue me or something? I mean, I was totally willing to buy the pattern for $3 online, but buying a yarn I've never felt (at $10.50/skein) and paying for it to be shipped internationally is just a bit of a stretch for me, when there are plenty of great yarns here. That little issue does not take much convincing for me, but what does trouble me is the issue of what yarn to use instead. See, I have this feeling that the first time around doing this pattern is going to turn out a bit off, because let's face it, all of my projects kinda turn out that way the first time around. But I haven't found anything at my cheap yarn sources that's really grabbed me, and I don't think I want to do it in ¥100 store acrylic, because ... well, because I don't. All that work for acrylic? Scratchy, inflexible? But then, if I use the yarn I really want to use, which is the love of my life in Japan, Exceed Wool, this is going to be a mighty pricey vest, especially if the first try doesn't turn out so hot.

So I'm stumped. But I need to go into the city soon anyway for some glasses, so I guess I'll just check out what they've got at that store in Shimatori, and see whether buying that yarn will allow me to eat for the rest of the month.

Also, check out what I found when I cut open an apple the other night. What the hell, man?