JRo Knits! - A Knitter's Patch of Green

You really are warmer with a scarf

2009-11-03T14:17:00.001-06:00

Multnomah-1 004
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

It felt like a saga, but once I got down to it, it only took a few days. I knit a Multnomah after the goading of Chrissy the Great through the vehicle of her podcast. It sounded so dang intriguing I just had to check it out.

I had two skeins of Knit Picks Stroll Multi in Cupcake. I was seduced by the pink and brown combination even though I just KNEW I would not like it knit up into socks. And I didn' t. Then I saw this shawl thingy and thought my problems were solved.

I started first with size 4 needles because I knit tightly and thought the recommended 3's would be too tight. With the 4's, the whole thing just looked sloppy. So I breathed deep and tried the 3's.

Everything looked well enough, but when I was just about ready to start the feather and fan, I realized it was doll sized. I know people are saying that theirs looked deceivingly small, but this was ridiculous. There was NO way I was going to keep it like that, even if my only goal was to have a scarf in the end.

Then I decided to simply throw caution to the wind and give it a go on size 7 needles. Mystery of mysteries, it worked. I was very nearly on gauge. Near enough to say that next time if I use 6's, I'll be spot on. I'm so happy with the colors and how they look made up into this cute little shawl.

I wear it wrapped around my neck as I shiver while working. It is so true, you're much warmer with a scarf!

Perhaps I'm listening to too much Stash and Burn...

2009-10-09T13:01:00.001-05:00

My Orange Mystery Mitts
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

Blasphemy! There is no such thing as too much Stash and Burn...however...

...everything I'm knitting seems to be in a shade of orange or turquoise (see it peeking in at the top of the photo??). Those are my Mock Cable Socks.

But these are some Mystery Fingerless Mitts by Terry Morris. I adore the gansey-type texture patterning and the construction is really fun. My gauge appears to be a bit big so they might be a little too loose for mitts. Should that be the case I think they would still work out using the mitten variation in Clue #5.

Or I'll frog back a repeat and redo the thumb. Not sure yet, but I think they're great!

Everybody should make them!!

Holy Slouch Hat, Batman!

2009-10-08T12:58:00.001-05:00

1008091111.jpg
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

Good grief. This thing is enormous.

I wanted this to be a cute silent statement of support for Breast Cancer Awareness Month (my MIL died of it 15 years ago). Instead, it's something I could take a bath in.

There's one thing that can be learned from this...

Gauge lies.

As if we didn't already know that.

Dolores Park in the Wild!

2009-10-02T10:49:00.001-05:00

Dolores Park (2)
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

Can I say that if it is just me? I wore it out to Michael's today...nobody said anything to me, but I did catch a few people looking at it. They were jealous...I know.

I digress. Today is chilly. I refuse to say "cold" because I, being a Minnesotan, know what cold is. 46 degrees F isn't "cold", but it is chilly. Chilly enough that I felt the urgent need to break out the Dolores Park Cowl and Axel's Fingerless Mitts.

I made the cowl last May and the mitts not too long after, I think. It's Malabrigo Chunky in Stonechat (which by the way is MY color) and it's heavenly. The cowl is perfect to wear with my jean jacket and my fall jacket as long as I sheild it from the Velcro. It still looks perfect but the mitts are a bit pilly from wear. I can handle that though.

These were just the perfect touch to keep my feeling good on my little trip over to Michael's. Patons Classic is on sale for $3.99 a ball through tomorrow. I could not resist, but I didn't go crazy.

I bought 6 skeins of Mercury, a new colorway that looks...well, like mercury. It's a deep silvery blackish gray almost a hint of dark blue kind of shade, if you get my drift. And it's a solid. I can see this as some sort of sweater. Pullover or cardigan is yet to be determined.

I also bought two skeins of Dark Gray Mix and Burnt Orange. The gray is a weakness of mine. For some reason, that colorway is supremely soft, much softer than some of the others. I also made my Oblique (best sweater EVER) with the Dark Gray Mix. It's my fave.

Lastly, I got two skeins of a new colorway, Burnt Orange. It's a great shade of orange, but it's a solid and I have my eye on the Lines and Circles Cravat from Leigh Radford's new book, One More Skein. Because it's shown in a kettle-dye, that's what I have my heart set on. I picked up some orange Wilton's icing dye and I'm going to overdye the lovely solid orange with a slightly darker shade of red-orange and hopefully achieve a sort of monochromatic tonal effect.

Oh, and I got what looks like the best pumpkin scooper in the entire world! At least I hope so. It's huge, it's metal, it has teeth on the edge...I'm very hopeful.

Off to skein some orange yarn...wish me luck!

Sprucey Lucy - aka, BEST SOCK EVER!!!

2009-09-29T10:38:00.001-05:00

Sprucey Lucy FO (1)
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

I don't know what it is about this one, but just so you know...I'm right. It is the best sock ever!

For starters, I made these out of a great yarn - Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Multi in Glenwood. (I still can't get over the fact that I got 2 complete good sized pairs of socks out of 3 skeins!!)

For seconds, the pattern is Sprucey Lucy, a fabulous free pattern by the lovely Wendy D. Johnson. I'd missed these on the Ravelry KAL, so at the end of a particularly prolific sock month, I decided to make these.

I was happy as I knit them and drooling as I finished them. Now that I've had several opportunities to wear them, I am blissfully happy with them! For some reason that I can't put my finger on, these socks fit much better and the pattern is the perfect combination of texture and plain stockinette. I think it's the perfect way to showcase a special yarn. I know this yarn is very common, but it was special to me because it was the best sock yarn I'd ever knit with.

My ONLY wee tiny complaint is that I now know what people mean by the 'princess and the pea' effect with socks. This yarn and Patons Stretch Socks are yarns that I definitely notice a little soreness on the bottoms of my feet from the purl bumps. If I wear my clogs around the house, it's not as bad as if I'm just in the socks walking around on the hardwood. Even then, it's not terrible, just something more noticeable than with other socks.

Didn't help that I decided to take a 3 mile walk in them either. I won't be doing THAT again anytime soon.

But I adore these socks. Simply wonderful!

The Best Sweater Ever!!

2009-09-26T10:34:00.001-05:00

Top-Down V-Neck (1)
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

You know how it goes...you get the new magazines and drool over the fantastical sweater patterns. Maybe you even make some of them. But what's the sweater you turn to over and over again? Your go-to sweater?

It's that plain stockinette sweater with the clean lines and simple details. At least that's how it is for me.

This sweater is my new favorite - I just hope and pray that the yarn wears well.

This is the Summer Tweed Top Down V-Neck by Heidi Kirrmaier, made in size M with Moda Dea Silk n'Wool Blend in Aquatic. It's so comfy I absolutely cannot wait to wear it everywhere. The proportions are incredibly accurate. There's no need to worry about modifying the armscye or fretting over the arm decreases being too many. I'm convinced anybody would end up with a perfectly fitting sweater. The arms are comfortable without being too big. The shaping in the body is just enough. The neckline is the most flattering v-neckline I've ever made.

The only thing I did differently than the pattern was the rolled edges on the arms and body. Rather than doing stockinette right up until the bind off, when I got to the length I wanted, I purled one round, then knit 6 rounds. That one little purl round was enough to control the curl so it didn't lose 5 inches and make it look like there's an inner tube around my waist.

Anyways, it's great! I can't wait to wear this to soccer and football games. It's awesome and I highly recommend it!

Hoo-ray for stash busting!

2009-08-20T14:42:00.001-05:00

Basic Slip Stitch #1 (3)
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

Aren't these adorable? I can't get over them. They're the perfect thing to help me cheer up out of my bronchitis funk.

I finished both pairs of August socks for the Socks from the Toe Up KAL on Ravelry by August 17th. What to do with the rest of the month? I didn't really care to make another of either pattern so I dove into the sock scrap box.

I've been wanting to do this ever since I saw the Blender Socks on Ravelry by Heather Sebastian. I used Wendy D. Johnson's Basic Slip Stitch Socks pattern from the Socks from the Toe Up book and scraps from 4 different socks.

I did the toes all with one yarn because it's just easier that way. I also tried something new. I rounded the toe slightly by doing the first 3 increases consecutively rather than on alternating rounds. That worked out really well.

Once the toes were done, I started using another yarn on every other round, carrying it up the side (I put that side on the inside of my foot). I did the heel turn with one yarn, then the heel flap and gusset join with another. I continued alternating on the leg, adding new yarns as I ran out. I didn't use any particular order and as you can tell, the socks are fairly fraternal, but that does not bother me one bit. I thought I had equal yardage of everything, but apparently I did not because you can see in the sock on the right that I had to use another yarn at the very top.

No big deal at all and I really adore these! They are comfy and cute and fun and everything a handknit sock should be. These socks are the ones that have made me decide once and for all that I need some clogs or some other type of shoes so show of my socks.

Best of all, I was able to take what could have been seen by some as throw away yarn and make it into something supremely useful!

On to the next!

Seaweed's - The Crap Sock

2009-08-17T15:01:00.001-05:00

Seaweed FO
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

I shouldn't be so hard on the poor thing...it's really not it's fault. It's Wendy D. Johnson's free Seaweed Socks pattern knit from Patons Stretch Socks in Olive. The pattern is nice and well written and pretty, but I've decided I'm not the biggest fan of the stretchy yarn.

Normally, I don't have any problem with the purl bumps on the inside sole of my sock. No need for the "princess" sole around here. However, this stretchty yarn is not as smooth and soft as the other yarns I like, the woolier sock yarns. It feels almost like I'm knitting with dental floss and while not exactly uncomfortable, I can feel a difference with this yarn on the bottom of my foot.

That's not even to say that the yarn doesn't make a good sock. It really does. I know how to knit with it and get great results using the stretch. I like the colors too. But it's a bit uncomfortable to knit with and I think I'll be just fine taking a break from this stuff.

Now that I have a new pair of socks to wear!

Diamond Ganseys for....what??? a KAL??? Really???

2009-08-11T10:40:00.001-05:00

More Diamond Ganseys (1)
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

Yep, you heard right! I'm still rockin' the Socks From the Toe-Up KAL on Ravelry. Diamond Ganseys are done (love!) and I'm on the gusset of the second Seaweed Sock.

I think my plight is the same as for many knitters. The sure kiss of project death is a deadline or anything that in any way dictates how, what or when I knit my project.

However, this one is different. Firstly, I found it at the height of supreme sock mojo, right after purchasing Wendy D. Johnson's Socks from the Toe Up. I'd been leary to try her method because I've had such success with Cat Bordhi's sockitectures, but there were a ton of prizes to be won and I still would like to fill my sock drawer by winter.

Interestingly enough, I was knitting the Lacy Ribs socks at the same time as the rest of the KAL. I was using Cat's Riverbed architecture because I thought that would be best. Yet when the sock was finished, the heel was too wide and there was too much fabric pretty much everywhere on the foot of the sock. Then I found the KAL, realized I was right in step and got started.

I found the KAL on July 20 and thought, what the heck, I'll do the July socks! So I actually finished the On-Hold Socks and Nanner Socks with a couple days to spare. I didn't win any prizes, but I'm so happy to have two more pairs of socks that fit so well!

I'm having an excellent time knitting socks and hope the mojo lasts. With the Ganseys finished, I'll get the Seaweeds done soon. I have some Lorna's Laces left over from the Nanners so I'm trying to get another pair out of the leftovers. I chose the Sprucey Lucys for those since that sock was already done by the KAL and I won't feel like I'm duplicating efforts later on.

Yay, socks are fun and what's better than a drawer full of comfy wool socks in a MN winter??

Finished! with time to spare even!

2009-07-29T14:45:00.003-05:00

Yay! The Nanners are done! This was a new record and one that I never thought I'd ever make with a patterned sock. I started these on July 25 and finished them on July 28. Wow!

I'm extremely pleased with the feel of this yarn. It's Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Multi (the fanciest sock yarn I've ever used, BTW) in Glenwood. It feels silky smooth, the colors are lovely and well spaced - they just look lovely and feel fantastic. I hope they wear just as well. Yes, it's July and these are 80% merino, but it's only 73 here and I'm wearing these for the rest of the day.

About the photos, the top photo shows my issue with the Russian bind off (on the right) and why I love the sewn bind off (on the left). Maybe I'm just not that comfortable with it, but I think I'll stick with what I know and love and can do well. I don't hate it enough to pick it out, just don't think I'll do it again. But you'll never know if there's something you'll like better unless you go for it. I'm happy I tried it!

And that's about all there is to say about that. I'm quite impressed with myself to have made both July pairs of socks in 8 days and I'm looking forward to August. Until then, I need to dive in a tackle creating a very pointy toe for a pair of socks to fit my mom's size 12 very pointy feet. I'd better have a notepad handy. Wish me luck.

Getting Ready for the Ganseys

2009-07-28T11:27:00.004-05:00

I'm nearly done with my Nanners and it's nearly August...so naturally I'm looking forward to the Diamond Gansey Socks for the Socks from the Toe Up KAL on Ravelry! All my stash sock yarn is self-striping and I knew that wouldn't do for gansey socks. Let's face it, I'm a cheapskate and even though I wanted a kettle-dyed yarn, I didn't want to go to the LYS to get it.

So last week was Coupon Commotion week at JoAnn. Armed with six 40% off coupons, I came away with 2 balls of Sensations Bamboo & Ewe in red and Red Heart Heart & Sole; 2 balls of Spring Stripe and 4 balls of Ivory - bring out the Crock Pot and the Wiltons!

I knew I wanted a kettle-dyed look and that was about all I was sure of. I didn't wait for the water to be hot before adding the yarn. It's superwash so I figured it could handle sitting in there. I let it soak some more in the plain water with some vinegar (I don't measure) because I didn't want the dye to have time to soak in all over the place and make solid yarn.

As for color, I pulled out Wiltons brown and burgundy hoping for something resembling fall leaves. I got orange. To make it a little more golden, I added several drops of McCormick's yellow. After I'd mixed the dye in my 4 cup measuring up, I dumped it in. I dumped it fairly evenly over all the yarn, but I didn't touch it at all or take too much care to get it all covered. I never stirred it, never disturbed it once. It soaked in extraordinarily fast so I let it cool, rinsed it, and hung it out on the plant hooks to dry. I think it looks how a kettle-dyed yarn ought to look.

I'm so excited to start the Diamond Gansey Socks!

Sock Mojo Rules the Day!

2009-07-27T09:47:00.003-05:00

I'm so happy the sock mojo is still here. It's so fun! I'm having a great time with the Socks from the Toe Up KAL on Ravelry and frankly, still rather amazed that I am actually participating. Yeah it's only the first month I've done it so there's still time for me to fall on my face, but for now, it's all good.

Since I finished the On-Holds on July 25, I naturally figured "why not try to knock out some Nanners as well?" The Nanner Socks are the selected free pattern for July in the KAL. It's a great excuse to use the Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Glenwood. I'd bought 3 skeins intending for it to be a shawl of some sort, but I now know I'm not a huge fan of small shawls. Plus, since the sock mojo appears to be unstoppable, why not use it for these? Even though it's multicolored, it's not so busy as to obscure the pattern.

Here's the progress photos...

Pattern: Nanner Socks, size M, 9” long, 6” or so cuff
Began: July 25, 2009
Finished:
Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock Multi in Glenwood
Needles: Knitpicks US size 2 (2.75mm) 32” nickel-plated circular (Magic Loop)
Mods: none
Toe: Judy’s Magic Cast On
Heel: Slip-stitch Gusset Heel as written in pattern
Bind Off: Sewn BO and Russian Bind Off

Comments: I tried the Russian Bind-Off on the first sock and I don’t think I’m a big fan. I’m going to go back to my favorite sewn BO for the next one. I adore this yarn and it looks really nice in the pattern. The sock is twisting a bit, but hopefully it won’t be a problem during wear.

Hey look - I finished something for a KAL!!

2009-07-27T09:44:00.001-05:00

On-Hold Socks - Finished (1)
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

I can hardly believe it. Typically, committing to something is a sure precursor to my abandoning that something completely, but that does not seem to be the case this time. Hooray!

These socks were super fun to knit. They caught my eye the first time I flipped through the book and I was pretty happy to find the KAL and have this be the sock for July. It was even more fortuitous that I had this lovely colorway of Patons Stretch Socks in my stash (Kelp). The pattern looks great and the fit of the socks is superb.

I couldn't ask for a nicer pair of socks!

Stay tuned for the Nanners. Nevermind that I started them a mere 6 days before the end of July; I'm still going to try to knock them out in time to be eligible for those prizes as well. Oh, I so want to win something...anything!

Yay more socks!

2009-07-04T07:16:00.001-05:00

Ridgeline Master Socks (1)
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

Hooray for sock mojo! Apparently I only have it in the summer. This is wonderful because they are great summer projects and I really do need more socks.

While I typically consider myself a process knitter and I do REALLY enjoy the process of knitting Cat Bordhi socks, I think the project knitter in my has a chance to flourish when it comes to socks. Nothing - besides dishcloths and clogs - gets used more on a day-to-day basis than my socks.

There really is something to be said for having a pair of socks that fit you like a glove. No floppy toes, no falling inside my shoes; it's really fantastic.

I plan to muscle my way through my comparatively small sock yarn stash and have a full drawer by winter.

Oh, and my mom asked if I'd make her some socks.

She's a woman's size 12.

Strrrrrrretch....socks!

2009-06-24T09:13:00.001-05:00

Stretch Upstream Socks
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

Several months back, Michaels had Patons Stretch Socks on clearance...clearance! Yes, I know it's not from a yarn store and it's not a high end sock yarn, but clearance? Clearance? I had to get some (ahem, 4 pairs worth).

But I wasn't sure how to deal with it, being stretch and all. Plus, I wasn't really in a sock knitting place at the time. But we're experiencing a few days of tropical heat and humidity, thus I am now very much in a sock knitting place.

Where to start? With the tried and true, of course. The Upstream Master Sock pattern from New Pathways for Sock Knitters by Cat Bordhi.

The Pontoon Toe on the first sock came out a little loosey goosey because I was overly conscious of not overstretching the yarn, but I could easily fix that at the end with a spare length of yarn. After that, I just pretended the stretch didn't exist and knit like normal.

I think they turned out nicely. Because only I can expect to have freezing cold feet when the heat index is 100 F, I promptly put the socks on. They felt good and fit well but when I took them off, they looked like they might have become stretched out and loose along the sole. I think I'll hold off knitting any more of the yarn until I've washed these and worn them a couple times. Of course they need washing because wearing socks in my house is a sure sign that you will step on a blob of cookie dough - which I did.

The delay in knitting more of the Stretch Socks won't cramp my style, however. I have several more pairs-worth of regular non-stretchy sock yarn that is begging to be knit. I have a goal of a full drawer by the first frost.

All hail the socks!

A Pure and Simple Carigan

2009-04-16T08:31:00.001-05:00

241 in Cactus (4)
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

So I wanted a cotton-y sweater that I could make and take along on our trip to Orlando in May. Will I need a sweater in Orlando in May? Maybe, maybe not, but I stil wanted one.

I fell in love with the Knitting Pure and Simple Neck-Down Shaped V-Neck Cardigan (#241). I decided on Cotton Ease because I like the yarn and there were some new colors. Cactus looked like it was it. I mean IT.

'Lo and behold, Michael's actually had these new colors. Cactus looked a little different than it had on my computer screen, a bit more muted, but it was nice and I still thought that color was IT. I bought 6 skeins and went for it.

I used 7's and 5's, just like the pattern recommended, but has a slightly larger gauge than the suggested 20 sts/inch so I felt comfortable choosing my exact bust size. And since it only has the tie closure, it didn't matter even if it were a little smaller.

The knitting went fast and it was turning out lovely. Until I tried it on. And really looked at my face instead of the sweater. The color makes my skin go just enough green to make me look like I'm ready for the grave. This was really disheartening since I'd had such high hopes for this sweater. I put it aside with only a few rows done on one sleeve.

After starting - and loving - a February Lady Sweater but needing something more mindless for TV watching one night, I decided to pick up the Cactus Cardi again and get it over with.

Though I consider this pattern to be overall well written and without errors, I did have to make the same adjustment that many people have made - fewer decreases on the sleeves. The sleeves actually start out quite wide and decrease fairly rapidly to a size that would be too tight for most people around the bicep/elbow area.

So I did the sleeve decreases as directed in the pattern, but I did one fewer decrease for my size - to 48 stitches. I knit 10 rounds even, then did increase round/4 rounds even for a total of 3 times. Then switch to the smaller needle, do 10 rounds of seed stitch, and bind off with larger needle knitwise. Perfect just-below-the-elbow sleeves.

Now that it's finished and I've had a chance to wear it in the wild, the color is still not ideal but not as bad as I'd originally thought. Color aside, it is a FANTASTIC cardigan! I love it. It's light, comfortable, fits perfectly, and my sleeve length is perfect for me. Nothing to get in the way or have to continually push up, perfect for when I'm knitting or working. Perfect.

In every way. You should make one. I'm making another in dark brown.

Essential Tank

2009-03-23T10:33:00.001-05:00

Essential Tank (1)
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

Another chapter in the saga that is choosing the correct size...yet this one appears to be a success!

It's the Essential Tank from Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard. It is awesome!

I bought some Knit Picks Shine Sport in Violet from a fellow Raveler - 7 skeins to be exact. I don't even remember what I intended to make with it at first, but it couldn't have been anything that great. The yarn sat in my stash box FOREVER and was knit/crocheted/knit/frogged multiple times.

Until I got around to swatching for the Essential Tank, a design that really stood out to me in the book.

I labored over the decision of size. Now intellectually, I know that I'm really not overweight, but you see, I'm about 15 pounds over where I was even after my 3rd kid. This is disconcerting to me, hence I tend to fret over the notion that I'm much larger than I really am. Hence, I tend to make my sweaters and such much larger than they really need to be.

I'd already made Pink from the Custom Knits book and while I turned out great, it would have been better to knit it smaller. Yet at the time, I was utterly convinced I needed to make the large.

So I, with my 36" bust, thought I'd need to make this tank in the 36" size. Then I hung out on the Knit and Tonic Ravelry group for a while and read posts by Wendy herself saying that she likes everything with about 2" of negative ease and would recommend that for all the designs. That's just "how she rolls". I thought "you know what? That's how I roll too."

So I went with the 34" size. Turns out she knows what she's talking about and though I still would like to lose that 15 pounds, the tank looks pretty darn awesome!

The only problem is the neckline. I must have picked up the stitches a bit too tightly because there isn't a lot of stretch at the pick up line for the edging. I may rip it out, pick up the stitches with a larger needle, then reknit the edging with the smaller needle.

All in all though, I'd say this was a huge success!

The Littlest Buddy has a New Hat!

2009-01-16T11:16:00.001-06:00

Very Warm Hat for Boy #2
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

Just in the nick of time too! I finished this on Monday, I think? Can't remember, don't want to check.

At any rate, I finished it in time for the arctic cold snap that dumped mega sub-zero temps and windchills on our lovely Minnesota landscape.

I used all stash yarn (yay for stash yarn!) - Patons Classic in Taupe and Forest, and Brown Sheep Nature Spun Worsted in Red Fox. The inside is taupe with red "flames" and the outside is red with camo (Forest) "flames". Buddy loves the red/camo side and I must agree. It's adorable!

And warm, which is the important thing when one has to catch the bus in -40 windchills. I made myself one too. It's the best!

Stay warm, people!

Brr

2008-12-15T09:24:00.001-06:00

Thorpe and Super Mittens
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

That's about all there is to say today. Right now, at 9:13 a.m. CST, it's -8 with a -28 windchill. That's up from a -35 windchill when the kids left for the bus. Eek.

So yesterday I made Thorpe, thinking that a Fair Isle 100% bulky wool earflap hat would be just the thing to keep me warm.

Dummy.

I'm still a rookie at stranded knitting so apparently I must not knit as tightly when doing color work as I do when knitting plain stuff. If I'd known that, I would not have gone up a needle size.

Everything went along very nicely and the hat looks great, but it's a bit too big. Which is weird since I measured gauge and was afraid it wouldn't be big enough.

The patterned section is a big too long and loose and the garter stitch is waaaay too loose. The cold air is flying right through those bad boys.

It is so cute though and I'm not willing to give up on it just yet.

Those mittens, on the other hand, were a huge success! They are the Super Mittens from Weekend Knitting - my first and possibly forever favorite knitting book. I had bits of 3 colors of Lamb's Pride Bulky leftover from my kids' felted clogs. When I knew the deep freeze was coming, I decided to cast on and see how far I got. Lo and behold, I was able to get two pairs out of the leftovers - one for me and one for a boy, any boy.

The mittens are fantastic. So fast, so cute, and so warm. They are, indeed, super!

Clogs Abound!

2008-12-10T11:49:00.001-06:00

All the clogs
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

My twin brother showed up this past weekend for a visit. Yay! Even though he often is an arrogant jerk, it was nice to see him and the kids adore him. Want an example of arrogant jerk-i-ness?

Me: Would you like me to make some coffee now?
Him: Yes, please.
Me: Do you want regular, French vanilla, or cinnamon spice?
Him: Regular. (then after seeing that it was Folger's) Uh, wait, maybe this stuff will be ok (the cinnamon spice).

No, Jamie, I am not a coffee snob. I do not have the luxury of being single. Here's another example...I made an apple pie and he did not want any when the rest of us had some. A short time later...

Him: Hey, can I have some apple pie now?
Me: Sure.
Him: [blank stare and awkward moment] Umm, ok, I guess I'll get it myself.
Mom: Your arms aren't broken! Get up and get it yourself!

Now for a normal person, I would probably be the good hostess and serve the pie myself. But my brother is a jerk who thinks everyone needs to wait on him. He's 35 years old. Nope, not me. He can get his own darn pie!

Now the story of the clogs. I heard about Bro's visit a couple weeks before the fact. I thought a pair of clogs might be a nice gift for the kids to give him. I asked him if he'd want some, what colors would he like and what is his shoe size. Sure, he'd like some and how about MN Wild colors? That's our hockey team...red, green, gold.

Wait, what the heck is his shoe size? Darn brother! I sent another message (because forget trying to reach him by phone) but I had a good idea of his size so I went ahead and bought the yarn. I got Brown Sheep Nature Spun Worsted in Red Fox and Elf Green. 2 skeins each. I already had a nice gold at home that I'd dyed myself.

I bought the yarn on Wednesday. Got a text that night that Bro is a US size 9.5. Ok, good. Thursday got another text saying that he actually is more like a US size 9. Oye. I decided to go with the mens size medium and figured if I could get these suckers knit on Friday, I'd felt them early Saturday and pray the dryer would get them dry enough to give to him Saturday afternoon.

I knit like a madwoman on Friday, working just enough to satisfy my company that I wasn't slacking off. Soles and cuffs were done in green, two rounds of gold before the short rows of the foot, then red for the main part of the foot. I wove in the last end just before bedtime on Friday night. Whew!

At 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, I consulted a few sock books and the tables with shoe sizes and foot lengths. I found the right length and got to felting. These felted up so nicely and got to the right size at the same time. I put them on the dryer rack and set it to medium heat. Got it all done in time to go watch my daughter's basketball games.

I kept the clogs in the dryer all afternoon. It was still running when my mom and brother arrived around 4:45 p.m. After saying hello and all that, the first thing he said was "so where are my MN Wild slippers? Huh? are they done?"

I walked silently into the laundry room, emerging with the perfectly dry and wonderful MN Wild Felted Clogs. They fit perfectly and he loved them. It also felt good that I didn't give him any ammunition to pick on me because I didn't finish something.

Not that it's ever happened before...

Hourglass turned Equinox

2008-12-08T12:35:00.001-06:00

Hourglass turned Equinox (6)
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

Yay for me! Rah rah rah rah! Wheee!

Finally something I can wear and be happy with!

As you may remember, I knit the Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts last November-December. It went smooth as silk, looked fantastic, fit perfectly - except for one problem. The hemmed neckline was touching my neck and I hate that. HATE.

I have not worn it and did not want to wear it so I set out to figure out how to make it into something I could love again. My yearning to do fair isle led me to the decision to rip out the yoke and do some kind of circular pattern using the EPS.

I was nervous about ripping the neck hem but last Wednesday I needed something to do while on a conference call for work (shhh, don't tell) so I grabbed the sweater and a scissors and started to rip. I took out the entire raglan yoke back to a round above the sleeve join.

After an exhaustive search through my patterns, I decided that the Equinox Yoke Pullover by Michele Rose Orne from the Fall '06 Interweave Knits was the best fit, needing a decrease of only 2 stitches to make it work.

Recently I discovered where Walmart hid the Lion Wool - in the clearance aisle for $2.50 a ball! I bought the remaining 8 skeins of Winter White and went to town with the Kool-Aid and Wilton Icing Dyes. That little dyeing spree, plus another a couple months prior gave me plenty of colors to choose from. I grabbed a few that I knew would look nice with the Sapphire Heather main color and dove in.

The colorwork went surprisingly smoothly. This was my first attempt at fair isle in a garment and only the second time ever. I find it funny that I can't knit Continental, yet I can do fair isle with two hands no problem.

Another thing I liked about this yoke pattern was that it incorporated the main color and had perfectly spaced areas of straight knitting with the main color. The EPS worked supremely well with this design. I did a 25% decrease for the 1st decrease round, 33% for the second, then instead of another 33% for the 3rd decrease, I did 25% to leave a slightly wider neckline. After the last decrease, I did 2 rounds of 2x2 rib, then bound off in rib.

I love the result! I have the great fitting sweater body from the Hourglass Sweater, and the great fitting yoke using the EPS - and it looks gorgeous because of the lovely Equinox pattern.

The one thing that I'm not sure about is the neckline and the only thing there is that it's the same on the front and back. I would rather prefer it to be higher in the back. Wish I'd thought of that before doing the yoke, but live and learn. I may take out the bind off and try to add some short rows, but we'll see.

In the meantime, I'm quite proud of how my first fair isle project turned out!

Yay for me!

2008-11-26T09:10:00.001-06:00

Jenny's Clogs (2)
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

Yay for my feet, really. My 4th pair of Fiber Trends felted clogs are finally for me and me alone!

I love them. LOVE them. They are like a hug for my feet.

As far as the knitting goes, these things are about as close to instant gratification as you can get. Sure you have to keep an eye on the pattern and can't knitting willy nilly off into the sunset, but they move along really fast. Plus, what is more cool than a gigantic slipper the size of your arm becoming something form fitted to your foot?

It's awesome! I nearly forgot about them in the washer but made it just in time. When I made the first two pair for my boys, I didn't put anything else in the washer with them - no towels, old jeans, nothing. Just the clogs.

Hmmm, why did it take so much longer to felt them than it should have???

Then, when I knit my first She-knits bag, her instructions said she likes to add rubber flip flops to the mix to help everything felt better. DUH!!!! What a difference a little bit of additional friction makes. Highly recommend the flip flops with the felting.

I knit these on US size 13 circular needles. When time came to pick up stitches and knit them together with the main needle, I just grabbed a smaller dpn (once it was an 8, another time it was a 10) and did about 10 stitches at a time. MUCH more manageable that way, especially in the larger sizes when you're trying to fit more around that 16" circ.

I also knit the bumper. I thought it was cute and another way to tie in the cuff colors. And since I already made this from the stash with zero new yarn aquisition, I knew I wasn't going to spend $15 on soles. The bumper is cute!

Ok the yarn. It was all from the stash. A lot of it was used in the Marly Bag and I liked those combos so much, I did it here. I used Patons Royal Purple and Lion Brand Cadet Blue together for the main part of the clog. The sole was Patons Dark Gray Mix and New Denim leftover from Luke's Very Warm Hat. Cuff and bumper were Leaf Green and Gray Mix held together. The colors all felted nicely together.

Even though this was the 4th time I've knit the Fiber Trends Felted Clogs, it was the first time I've made them for myself and had a chance to feel how they fit through regular wearing. I've hardly been able to take them off since they finished drying. They are like a hug for my feet and I'm so happy to have them.

But.

Now I think I know why there were additional instructions for a woman's wide foot. Now, I don't consider my foot to be wide. It's your basic 8 1/2, perhaps slightly wider since I had kids, but I don't buy wide width shoes so I didn't feel a need to make those modifications.

After wearing them a few days though, I do notice that the sole does not seem wide enough. My feet seem like they are rolling to the outside and I often adjust them so that the sole feels more centered under my feet. Perhaps this is why that modification was introduced.

I'll have to try these again and see if that helps. Goodness knows I have plenty of stash yarn!

My youngest can't find one of his and has asked for another pair. This time he wants "lots and lots of colors". This should be good!

Mom's Ruffled Scarf

2008-11-20T10:42:00.001-06:00

Mom's Ruffled Scarf
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

Two posts in one day! Wow! It's either the impending apocalypse or I have loads of work and in desperate need of a reason to procrastinate.

Come on, we all do it sometime.

I just couldn't believe I hadn't shared this one yet. Maybe I did and don't remember it, but oh well. It's my blog and I can do what I want!

This is the Ruffled Cashmere Scarf from Closely Knit, by Hannah Fettig. I like this book a lot. The projects are sorted into chapters based on the intended recipient. This scarf was in the "Mothers" chapter and I knew I had to make it for my mom.

When I asked her what color she wanted for a scarf, she said "sage green". Easy enough, right? I was not prepared for how blasted hard it was to find sage green yarn suitable for this project!

I first bought Dream in Color Classy in Good Luck Jade. That was the best I could do at my LYS. It's a great color and a great yarn, but too heavy for this pattern and really not even close to sage green. My mom's reaction when I showed it too her was not very enthusiastic either.

So I continued to search. I investigated several yarns and finally settled on Malabrigo Silky Merino. It's DK weight - exactly what I need for this pattern - and the Green/Gray colorway was as close to sage as anything else I was seeing. I ordered it, started it, and loved it.

And it matches Mom's eyes. I think it will look great on her.

The yarn is gorgeous. Single ply 50/50 merino silk blend. Absolutely beautiful! It looks great in this pattern too. There is enough stockinette to let the slight variations in color intensity shine through. The pattern itself is great also. I hate scarves that are the same thing over and over for a gagillion inches. I like that this pattern is broken down into a repeat that actually has something going on to keep my interest. I love how the short rows create the ruffled effect. In my opinion, it worked up quickly. For a scarf.

The fabric lost a little body during blocking, but it still has the same flow and movement to it (the photo is post blocking). I folded it, wrapped it in tissue, and included 3 packets of Soak in the bag. Now if only the stars would align and I could actually give it to her.

Maybe this weekend. Cross your fingers that she loves it! Cross your toes that she actually wears it!

A word about socks...

2008-11-20T10:12:00.001-06:00

Jenny's Upstream
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

Yes, I finally got bit by the sock bug. It took Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters, Book One, but it did take.

This is my favorite master pattern from the book: Upstream. I love the way the arch increases surround the instep. I'd like to try to incorporate a pattern.

If only I could get the sizing right.

I measure my own foot and I get one set of numbers. I compare my shoe size to the chart in the book and I get another set of numbers. Ever still different numbers if I look at other charts in other books. All of the charts give numbers larger than what I got on my own. I remember Ann Budd saying that she knits her socks a little smaller than her actual measurements because she likes them snug.

So I thought I was doing exactly this when I decided to knit my socks for an 8.5" foot circumference and 9.75" foot length.

Apparently, I was wrong.

Though all the socks from my recent sock explosion are great and don't fall down or bunch up around my instep like all my storebought socks, they stil are too big. Too big around the foot and too long.

What gives?

I convinced my daughter to try on a pair of my handknit socks. When she actually said "these aren't that bad", I took that as license to knit her a pair. Since our feet are the same size, I decided to get crazy and knit the socks for an 8" foot circumference and 9.5" foot length.

Hold me down, people!

'Lo and behold, they are perfect. They fit like a hug. I'm kicking myself that I made them for her, but happy that I now know what works and can make them for myself.

It's a beautiful thing once you figure out exactly how you like something, whether it be the fit of a sock or a method of cooking pork chops to perfection.

I feel empowered. And ready to make more socks.

Pink is my new favorite color!!!

2008-11-19T11:59:00.001-06:00

Pink
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

No, I'm not blind.

Yes, I know there is no pink in this sweater. And I didn't do the same stripes as shown in the book.

What book?

Why, Wendy Bernard's new book, Custom Knits!

Before I go into that, let's talk about the sweater. I bought 5 skeins of Patons Classic in Natural Marl sometime last year. I don't even remember what I bought them for. A few weeks ago, I got the urge to dye some yarn NOW. I liked what I got out of that, but didn't know what to do with it. Then I realized that this little sweater would be perfect. I had enough yarn as long as I got creative with how I used the hand dye.

So I cast on the day my daughter and husband left for deer hunting. My gauge was tighter so I knit the 42.5" numbers hoping to end up with a 39" sweater. After joining the front and removing the sleeves, I started a random stripe pattern. All I did consistently was keep the rows of colored stripes an odd number. I followed the pattern in the book to the letter. Everything went perfectly and I got a great everyday sweater out of the deal.

If I ever make this same size again, I'll reduce the number of increases after the waist shaping. I think I'll try one size down next time. I gotta tell you, though, I love how this feels. I'm wearing it right now. Everything is perfect. Lengths, proportions, everything. It's a great sweater!

Ok, back to the book. It's called Custom Knits. Have you seen it yet? If not, go to Knit Picks (because they show pictures of the inside) and check it out. Then order it. Really, you have to.

I ordered the book without seeing any inside pictures first. I love Wendy Bernard's style so much, I just knew I would love this book, and who wouldn't love the concept of being able to tailor your garments just for you?

Stefanie Japel's book Fitted Knits tried to do this, but in my opinion, missed the mark. Wendy's book offers much clearer instruction and better yet, within each pattern is a "make it your own" box with tips on how to customize that pattern. It's brilliant!

I loved Pink from the moment I first opened the book, but I was a bit intimidated. Not because of the design - heck it looked like I could have knit it in my sleep - but because of the photo. A cute skinny brunette wearing the sweater and panties, taking photos of herself. I used to be a cute skinner brunette. Not so much on the skinny anymore, so I was a little leary of how this sweater would look on me.

A week or so earlier, I started Wendy's Opulent Raglan from KnitScene Fall/Winter 2008. After seeing so many nice FO's on Ravelry, and seeing how it looked great on everyone, I decided to give it a go. That is like a magic sweater. I loved how it was turning out. So I decided that Wendy knew what she was doing with this sweater design thing and began Pink.

Seriously fast to knit and seriously cute. Two things I can't resist.

I gotta knit me some more of this!

Happy Boy has a New Hat!

2008-11-18T15:05:00.001-06:00

Happy Boy
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

My son needed a good wool winter hat. The only hand knit hat he had was acrylic. That just ain't gonna cut it around here.

I knew it had to be wool and it had to be warm. As luck would have it, I had just bought Knitting Around (quite possibly THE best book for basic patterns in the whole world) and fell in love with the Very Warm Hat. My typical fear of the unknown - in this case, fair isle - has been less than usual lately. It's amazing, but I have actually wanted to try it.

This seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it. I started it in the car no less, on the way to Pierz to pick up our venison from Thielen's. If you're ever in central MN, look them up and buy some bacon. You won't be sorry!

I digress.

The color work went amazingly well. Here's the weird thing. I've crocheted longer than I've knit. I hold the yarn to crochet exactly how you hold it when knitting continental, yet I can't knit continental to save my life. However when I knit the colorwork in this hat, I held the yarn one in each hand and it worked out beautifully. No tangling, no twisting, tension remained constant. The tension was what had me the most worried, but it all seemed to even out magically.

So now I'm getting ready to start my first colorwork yoke sweater. I'm going to do the patterns from the Lite Lopi Pullover in The Best of Interweave Knits (because I love that Bohus look), yet follow EZ's EPS. That seems to be how many have found success with that sweater.

I also want to revamp the Hourglass Sweater. It's lovely, it really is, but I just can't wear it. The neckline touches my neck and I can't stand it. I'm going to rip out the neck for sure and I'll either redo it as is (only earlier) or I'll rip the yoke out completely and do a wide neck, u-neck, or colorwork. Not sure yet, but I have to do something to make it wearable again. It's too pretty and fits too well to sit in my closet.

Canopy Cardigan - New and Improved Photos

2008-10-29T10:26:00.002-05:00

Canopy Cardigan - New and Improved Photos
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

I was less than pleased with the initial photos I took of this garment. I was wearing what can only be qualified as jammies. They were photos for photos' sake and frankly I'm embarrassed.

These are much better.

This is how I wear this sweater from day to day. Jeans and my favorite style top in the world, the long sleeve knit crewneck T-shirt. A little close-fitting, but not tight. That's my style and this cardigan fits in perfectly.

I freely admit I could have knitted a size smaller. The sleeves and length are perfection, but the body is loose and a little wide. There is no way I can wear this cardigan without a fastener. It flops off my shoulders and I fear I could fly away like a kite.

I'd been using a kilt pin to fasten the ribbing together at the neck - which did work, but it was bulky. Plus the pin is so sharp that I worried about snagging the yarn.

Then I remembered the fasteners in Doris Chan's Everyday Crochet. These are genius. Grab a couple shank buttons, some beads and elastic beading cord and in mere minutes you have a wonderful non-permanent fastener for your favorite garment. It works kind of like a cuff link. Amazingly, I found the perfect buttons at Walmart.

It works like a charm. I put each button through the lacy holes at the base of the leaves. I'm thinking a couple more might be nice to close it up a little more. I love the flyaway look of cardigans fastened only at the top or with just a few buttons done up.

The great thing about this type of fastener...wait, there's a few great things. You can make multiple fasteners for the same garment and vary your look as often as your mood. AND you don't have to sew anything. ANYTHING!! That rocks. Not that sewing buttons is hard, but it can be irritating. This fastener won't mess with the way your fabric looks either, no puckering or anything. Plus, playing with beads is fun!

Pretty cool, huh?

Yes...I made another cardigan...

2008-10-22T09:18:00.001-05:00

Drops 107-9 Cardigan
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

Ok, I know I've made a lot of cardigans lately. Yes, I do still have BOTH my mom's scarves on the needles. Yes, I said I'd make socks for my daughter before she goes hunting in 2 1/2 weeks.

What exactly is your point?

It's that same thing that happens when you have to study for a really big test and suddenly you feel the urge to scrub your bathroom with a toothbrush. Anything to prolong the inevitable.

It was just too cute to pass up. I even had a suitable yarn in my stash. Ok, acrylic may not be all that suitable to anything other than afghans, but I felt confident it would work in this pattern (Drops 107-9). The gauge is a little looser and the lace would give it more drape as well. I gave it a soak and laid it out on the guest bed. I'll blast it with some steam in a little bit. Steam certainly can't hurt.

I think it worked out well! It's a very pretty design, very feminine. Alas, I think I made it a little small for my taste (either that or I have the tricky gauge again). The Lupus Foundation is stopping by Friday for donations so I may leave it out for them.

Although now that I think about it, I'd kind of like to keep this stuff in town. I know there are people who need clothing right here. I'll have to check into where I could take my stuff.

I'm going to donate a few other sweaters as well. 28thirty, Leaf Yoke Cardigan, and Drops 79-24. They all turned out well, they're just not doing it for me either in size or style. A couple of them hit too high on the neck and I have a thing about stuff touching my neck. I've been saying I'm going to lose weight for a while, but since that isn't budging more than about 5 lbs., I'd better just get rid of the stuff rather than have it taunt me.

Plus, if you were someone in need, wouldn't it make you feel good to have a cozy handknitted item? I think it would feel pretty special to see something like that among your choices. I'll tag 'em and bag 'em and say a little prayer that they find good homes.

Dulcie and the Bad, Bad Yarn

2008-10-13T14:15:00.001-05:00

Dulcie Hat (6)
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

Remember the bad yarn? I shouldn't blame the yarn. It was all me. I had a bad morning at work and felt the need to throw Wiltons icing dyes at some yarn. I soaked it for too little time, tried to speed the process along, and ended up with something not remotely like what I'd envisioned.

But it all worked out in the end.

Somehow I'd forgotten that a very kind woman had swapped patterns with me. I gave her a scanned copy of a hat pattern and she gave me a copy of Going Straight by Woolly Wormhead. I know. A fair trade, it was not, but she was willing and I was happy to receive.

So I'd forgotten about it. Until the other day. Lo and behold, there lay the most perfect-est patterns for hand painted or subtely variegated yarns.

I chose Dulcie.

Now let me first say, these patterns are not difficult. The knitting is easy. However, one must familiarize themselves with short rows, hiding the wraps of said short rows, and kitchener-ing just about anything to anything else. I was 4 sections into my first go at this hat when I realized that I'd been hiding wraps as though the stockinette side was the right side. Wrong! They looked like crap, so I ripped it out and started again, this time doing it the right way. I also sized up to the large.

It's cute, huh? This is immediately after weaving in the two teensy ends. The colors aren't quite this bright (that's the flash) - they remind me of sumac in September, just before it's completely red. Or the Minnesota Wild hockey team. I will call it what I will as the mood strikes me.

The Going Straight e-book has THE best instructions for short rows, hiding wraps, and Kitchener stitch on the entire planet. No lie. I've never been able to Kitchener to save my life. Everything I've tried it on looks horrible. I learned to do it on the needles and that works fine, but I really wanted to do it the right way. The instructions in Going Straight are no fail. Perfect photos, perfect text, everything worked like a charm. I can't even find my seam now. How 'bout that?

Just remembered I have to get some dog food.

A better shot...

2008-10-02T10:16:00.002-05:00

See? It's a little better. First one is with the flash - a little flashed out, but it shows the color variation.

This one is without the flash and a more accurate representation of what it looks like to me.

As I went through the 3rd iteration of this yarn dyeing adventure, I decided to check out Knitty's tutorial on hand dyeing yarn...again. She let her yarn soak in the vinegar/water all night long. Hear that, Jen??? All night! Not 15 minutes until you've decided you can't wait any longer. ALL NIGHT!

Next time I'll soak it all night first. Think first, then act. I might just end up with something I love.

In the meantime, I'm going on a hunt this evening for Malabrigo Chunky in Stonechat. Must make a hat.

The Bad Batch (1)

2008-10-02T10:08:00.001-05:00

The Bad Batch (1)
Originally uploaded by JRoKnits

Ugh. It's better than it was. When it came out of the pot initially, it was mostly green. Rats!

I really didn't want another skein of green yarn.

So I popped it back in and tried to add more blue. Got more mud.

So I let it dry. Then I laid it flat in a 13x9 glass dish and tried adding a little more dye in what I thought was a responsible manner. I do think the final product bears some more depth and is better, but it is so far from what I originally wanted.

There is far more reddish/purpleish/burgandy-ish and that's good. There is less green and that's better. There are hints of midnight-y blue, gold, and brown here and there. That is good too. Not sure what I'll make with it. Possibly the cabled footies from One Skein. Possibly a scarf or a hat.

Although if I had to wear this yarn on my head I might never leave the house.

Then again, I could make something really embarrassing and wear it on the 6th grade field trip next week.

Would that be too cruel?

I just can't give it up!

2008-09-26T14:32:00.003-05:00

The blog, that is! It's just plain ol' good clean fun to have a place that's all mine to talk about my stuff. And, I got a very nice comment asking me to please not stop. Even if you're the only one reading this, that's enough for me. Thank you so very very much!

Plus, I can't talk about dyeing yarn on Ravelry. At least not how I'd like to.

Today was busy. Heck, I've been busy for about 3 weeks. All 3 kids are in school now, 2 in soccer, and other little odd things too numerous to count. Work has been coming at me full speed too. Instead of my regular morning hours, I was spending most of every day at the computer working. I think every sock we own collectively as a family of 5 was in my room unfolded. Half the room was covered in clean laundry. I finally bit the bullet a couple days ago and COMPLETELY CAUGHT UP. Yes, you heard right. Go ahead and hate me. I'm caught up on laundry.

If it makes you feel any better, I'll have 5 loads to do by tomorrow evening. That's usually how it goes around here.

Work today got so irritating that I decided to dump out all my Wiltons Icing Dyes and throw some yarn in a pot. I crashed the stash and came up with one of the 6 skeins of Patons Classic Wool in Natural Marl that I've have for nearly a year and one lone skein of Winter White. So I went for it.

There wasn't much science involved here. I was hoping for brown with bits of burgundy. I ended up with something very similar to a result I've acheived before.

But I like it. The marl gives it an effect that I really like and the fact that I did not stir the yarn left areas with less dye. I like that too. Plus, one can never miss an opportunity to embarrass the middle school daughter when she comes home from school!

My second attempt with the Winter White is not achieving anything near the results I was hoping for. I wanted to make a medium-ish brown with bits of purple and teal. The brown diluted and the purple and teal both spread and diluted. I added more brown, then added more purple and teal. Then I gave up and started randomly dotting the surface with regular dropper style food coloring. Who knows what this one will look like, but I still have fun with the process. This is pretty accurate to what I'm seeing in the pot right now.

This is with the flash. Oh boy.

I think I've added so much dye that it isn't really going to exhaust anymore. I turned it off. I might turn it back on for a little bit more. Whatev'

I find the process of dyeing my own yarn mind-clearing and creative-juice-flow inducing. I like it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

I lost my ground beef!

2008-09-16T14:01:00.002-05:00

I'm convinced I'm losing my mind. Perhaps it's just a delayed Monday reaction.

I started out by getting my last Amy's Tofu Scrambles Pocket Sandwich out of the big freezer. Love those! Got the toaster oven ready and thought I might as well give it 5 minutes to preheat. Left the frozen pocket on the counter and sat back down at my desk.

I'm working away like a busy little bee and reading a couple Ravelry posts to kill some dead network time. One gal mentioned that she'd been waiting a half hour for her coffee to brew and realized she'd never hit the button. OH MY GOSH!!!

My pocket sandwich was glistening and I was sheepish. I stuck it in the oven and set the timer lest I forget again. At the end, I gave it "5 more minutes" at a higher temp to get the crust really crispy. Who needs a timer for 5 minutes? Me. I got my brown and extremely crispy pocket out about 15 minutes later. After burning my tongue once, I had a completely delicious breakfast.

Then I lost my ground beef. No wait, first I found Stephanie O'Dea's fantastic blog: A Year of Crockpotting. This thing is a gold mine! Before I knew it, I'd exhausted a complete hour and the rest of my printer ink. I am inspired and excited.

THEN, I lost my ground beef. I was so excited about the recipes that I went searching for a pound to thaw. I looked everywhere. How many places could 10 pounds of hamburger from the giant Sam's Club sausage-roll of 90% lean really hide? Apparently the ice cream bucket hides many a forgotten frozen item. I also found a few cartons of some 10 month old Rich Whip. I hope it's still good. That's one of those things that I hadn't seen before in real life and when I did, I grabbed about a dozen cartons.

Another thing I can't find in real life anymore? Sorghum flour. At least not within 30 miles of my house and with gas prices this high, I'll pay the shipping to order it online. That's been my most heavily used flour since starting to use all of Carol Fenster's mixes and wouldn't you know it, when I start using it more, all the stores around me stop carrying it. Crud.

I'm thinking of - take that back, I'm going to take a new direction with my blog. For one thing, I don't think there were many people reading it anyway and for another, Ravelry completely satisfies my need to talk about and share pictures of my knitting and crocheting. I believe I'd like to turn my blog into more of a GFCF in Real Life kind of place where I can discuss my sucesses and failures with being a GFCF family and hopefully help others who might be just starting out. I may change this one, or I may abandon this one entirely and create a new one. That's probably what I'll do, but stay tuned.

That said, I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Where has the time gone?

2008-08-26T09:50:00.003-05:00

Again, yet another month+ since my last post. It's funny. I know there aren't many people who look my way on the 'net, yet I really enjoy getting on here and sharing my stuff. Just need to try to do it a little more often.

So, what has the summer held for me and my family? Let's see...

Uhhhh....

Well, I'd hoped to share a couple photos of our summer fun, yet Flickr hasn't been able to pull my assorted funny family fun photos off my camera. Fancy that. Guess I'll have to stick with the knitting. I finished 3 bags:

Rutabaga,

and 2 Malika's. (this one is a tribute to McDonald's)

and this was the first one. I made it longer than the pattern suggested because I didn't trust that it would be big enough as is. I could carry my kindergartner around in this bag if I wanted to.

I'm making June is for Jag for my mom's birthday out of Dream in Color Classy in Good Luck Jade. The pattern is a perfect fit for the perfect yarn. Pretty, huh?

Because I'm not positive this is the exact color Mom is looking for, I'm also making the Cashmere Ruffles Scarf from Closely Knit using Malabrigo Silky Merino DK in green/gray. No photo yet, but it's oh so yummy.

I sewed buttons on 28thirty,

blasted through the Canopy Cardigan from Knitscene,

a pair of mitts (Laura's Ribbed Mitts by Carrie Barraco, free Ravelry pattern),

and several hats (Santa Cruz, Foliage, Nezumi, Maple Seed).

I had an itch to do some stash busting. Can you tell? I'd hit you with more FO's but they aren't as recently done so I'll leave those for another day. Have a good one!

I'mmmmmmmmmm Readyyyyyyy!

2008-07-14T11:18:00.002-05:00

(said like SpongeBob Squarepants)

For what am I ready? The Summer KAL/CAL, of course! I first heard about the KAL/CAL earlier this year when I was listening to back-podcasts by Sharon and Marly. It sounded like so much fun I just had to get in on it this year.

I'm making Rutabaga from the Spring 2007 Knitscene. I already explained why I was afraid of this pattern initially, so I won't go into that again, but I will say that I loooove it!

I adore this stitch and can't believe it took me a year to even read the pattern and figure out it was nothing to be afraid of. It moves along quite nicely and my favorite thing about it is that it is stretch, but it has limits to its stretch. I like a stretchy bag, but I don't want it to stretch with wreckless abandon.

My sweaters are rather languishing right now. The Incan Pullover is sitting in my way at the end of my chaise end of the sofa, but I haven't worked on it for several days. 28thirty only needs one sleeve, but I haven't picked that up either. The Sera Lace Top has also lost its luster. The problem with that is I need more yarn. I don't want to buy more yarn. So I'll probably frog. What to do, what to do.

I ordered Norah Gaughan Vol.3 and Berroco 281 - Cuzco and Peruvia Quick from Jimmy Beans Wool. I sat here waiting and waiting, then realized I hadn't checked my home email for several days. Turns out #281 is backordered for a few more days and they had asked if I wanted them to send one without the other. By the time I saw the email, it had been nearly the amount of time of the backorder. So I told them I could wait for all of it to come at once. Trying so hard to be patient...and to finish other things first so I can fantasize guilt-free.

The usual kind of Monday stuff is happening here, though I can't believe it's already noon! My son has already been too and from preschool and now I have to run off to the bank and the post office. Big insurance docs to finally get off to our mortgage company so that repairs can finally take place. The dog reeks to high heaven so my daughter is bathing him - cross your fingers she keeps the water out of his highly susceptible to infection Golden Retriever ears!!

Happy Monday everyone and I hope to see you, too, at the Summer KAL/CAL!

Finish-itis!

2008-07-10T13:36:00.002-05:00

Not such a bad thing! I go in spurts of startitis and finishitis. I love to start start start, but then there's nothing quite as satisfying as finishing a bunch of projects one after the other. Okay, I find throwing out ball bands and a pile of snipped ends to be equally satisfying but that's beside the point.

I really wanted to bust the cotton stash in June. I tried, really I did...

This was less then half my washcloth production. When all was said and done, I'd made 14 washcloths for personal use and 4 more intended as a baby gift. Oh wait, I'm forgetting a couple - make that 6 more for gifts. All that knitting, and the cotton stash remains. It is smaller, but it's still there.

Doesn't help that I bought a cone of Peaches n' Cream and started this:

It's Rutabaga from Knitscene Spring 2007! I loved this immediately, but the word "cluster" scared me away from even reading the instructions. I envisioned having to knit a popcorn or bobble every few stitches (nevermind that I couldn't actually see anything like that in the photos) and couldn't bear the thought. Upon closer inspection, however, the cluster was nothing more than a couple wraps of a couple stitches. Big deal! I'm halfway through and it's really fun...though I can't work on it too much at one time since my hands are still recovering from the June Washcloth Mania (aka cotton hell).

I'm working my way through a couple sweaters. The Incan Pullover on the cover of the Summer '08 KnitSimple really is what this yarn wants to be, it's just taking a long time to become it.

I like top-down construction, but the yoke takes so dang long! I'm knitting this on size 6 needles which is the smallest size I've ever used for a garment. I finally made it to the back and my goal is just to have it done by fall - but I better hurry because that could come any day now!

The other sweater is crochet: The Sera Lace Top by Doris Chan from the Fall 2007 Interweave Crochet.

So far so good, but I'm going to definitely need more yarn. I'm using 7 balls of Knit Picks Shine Sport in Violet that I bought from someone on Ravelry. I knew I was rolling the dice by starting this with a finite quantity of yarn, but it was a chance I was willing to take. It's cute, but I'm concerned about the length. I know Doris is great about taking stretch into account so you don't end up with a dress, but it still is a little worrisome. I think I'll end the body with 2 more balls of yarn - one for each sleeve - then I'll order more yarn and leave my fate to the dye lot gods.

I'm very blase about work right now and thinking I'll bug off and crochet some more this afternoon. My daughter is at a basketball day camp in St. Cloud today and won't get home until 4-ish, but then right away at 5:00 we're off to Minneapolis for her last regular season soccer game. Eek. I won't be driving though so you can bet my lace scarf will be coming along. That thing is moving like lightning. Have I shown that yet?

The perfect use for the leftovers from my Knit it Down sweater and it satisfies my love of lace in worsted weight yarn.

On that note, have a wonderful day!

The Good, the Bad, and the Looney!

2008-06-23T13:10:00.004-05:00

I had a that kind of weekend. Mr. T was given Friday off to make up for having to work so much over Father's Day weekend. After I finished my work for the day, we went to the nursery and picked some perennials for my new flower bed. That was about all we had the energy for that day, but it was nice to all be home and have nothing going on.

Saturday rocked! It was a lovely 85 degrees here with a breeze - not too warm, not cold, and not a hint of humidity. We went fishing.

The good (a nice bass),

The "bad" (the world's smallest sunnie!),

And the Looney!

This beauty was only about 25 feet from the boat. The kids love them and Ben can do a mean loon impression. Frankly, it's not that hard for him.

I wore my newest yarny creation - another Fun in the Sun Hat!

I made this one from Peaches n' Creme from the stash and an H hook. Super easy, super fast, and super functional. Cute too! I love it and it was perfect for a warm day on the lake.

We fried the sunnies, beer-batter fried the bass, and ate them with fresh corn on the cob. We finished the day with a fire and s'mores out back. It would have been totally perfect if the neighbors hadn't ruined it. The guys behind us whooped it up until 1:30 a.m. with huge (and illegal) fireworks, girly screaming, and manly belching. Yeah baby. We were exhausted. We turned on all the lights and ate toast in the kitchen at 1 a.m. hoping they'd take the hint. Who knows if they noticed us, but they did stop at 1:30. Or maybe we just passed out. One or the other.

I'd hoped to sleep in on Sunday, but my lovely son who never sleeps past 6:30 decided to open the garage door before we got up. The alarms went off and I flew downstairs to disarm before I'd even opened my eyes. Spent 5 hours cleaning and the rest of the day moaning my aching back. Oh well.

I was looking forward to my endodontist appointment today - not because of the excitement of dental work - but because I'm in PAIN! However, that plan was foiled when the roofers showed up at 8 a.m. Would it have killed them to give me a heads up? My daughter didn't feel like staying home alone with the boys while a roofing crew was here so I rescheduled my appointment for next week (the earliest I could get in after today). Crapper! Must ration the pain meds!

As for knitting/crocheting, I'm still doing washcloths and I'm crocheting another Fun in the Sun Hat. That pattern is addictive! This one is taupe/ecru striped - a little more neutral this time and slightly darker. Next time I'm at Michaels/JoAnn, I'll pick up a color or something for another one. The stash does not have quite the color selection I'm looking for. Love it and must have more!

I suppose that's enough for now...back to work, back to work, work work work work!

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall...

2008-06-18T10:09:00.004-05:00

...and the dentist couldn't put her tooth back together again! The title is a tribute to today being Hump Day and to my feelings regarding my tooth and its failure to behave.

Another visit to Dr. John, another x-ray, and a referral to an endodontist. I don't know how they'll handle this, but I hope it's handled soon. I go in on Monday. In the meantime, I think it's a perfect excuse to pay a visit to my LYS this afternoon: Silver Creek Cabin. I'm dying to see the new Berroco Fall/Winter patterns in person. They're gorgeous!

Here's my own little bit of gorgeous-ness. Well maybe not actually gorgeous, but this will be my go to sweater for a long time.

I love love love and ADORE it! It's so comfy and the yarn is ridiculously soft. It cost me all of about $8 to knit because sadly, I think the yarn is discontinued, but that just means that I should try to snag some more before it's all gone. Yes, Bernat Denimstyle is an acrylic/cotton blend, but that cotton makes such an enormous difference. It's one of those sweaters that you don't even want to take the time to wash because you want to wear it any chance you get. I could have knit the small size just fine and it would have fit me more like the model, but it's great the way it is. The collar sits just fine and I love the deeper V. AND, no seams whatsoever. Even the crossing of the V-neck was achieved through switching and passing stitches. I could make this again in a heartbeat.

Look what I started with the leftovers:

It's the Easy Lace Scarf from Knitter's Review. I just realized that mine kind of looks like the one in the article. It's really turning out well and moves along so fast. What more could you ask for in a scarf?

I finished the first sleeve of 28thirty yesterday and instead of immediately blasting through the 2nd sleeve, I decided to go on a washcloth kick. I found a few great free patterns for diagonally knit washcloths, grabbed some leftover bits of 100% cotton and cast on. I made a reverse mitered washcloth last night and got halfway through Bernat's Eyelet and Ridge Washcloth this morning while I watched Angel. Fun fun fun! I love diagonal patterns because there's always something to look forward to. Plain straight up washcloths feel like they take longer. Maybe not, but they feel that way. Here they are so far:

I'd better call it quits today and get back to work. I have a few things to do before I take L. to therapy this afternoon. Amazingly, it's 74 degrees here and it actually feels warm to boot! All the windows are open but I may even have to turn on the AC today. Could it be true? Summer? Really?

Have a great day!

Another Monday....seriously??

2008-06-16T09:31:00.003-05:00

I can't believe how fast this year is going!?!?! More depressing - that it's nearly halfway over and we haven't had any real summer-like weather yet. No, seriously, I can do without scorching heat and choking humidity. The weather dudes don't think we're going to get much of that at all. It would be nice to save a little on the AC this summer, but hopefully there will be enough heat to coax the kids into playing with water outside.

We had a pretty darn fantastic weekend here. Mr. T's job makes things a little unpredictable so luckily we got in some fun prior to the actual Father's Day. On Friday we went out to eat at a local restaurant/bar called Chatter's. It was a perfect evening. The kids had a blast, we ate prime rib, and it's the kind of place where the kids can be themselves and nobody blinks. Then we drove out to a few lakes to check the status of their access ramps. Our favorite lake's access ramp was newly reopened so we all anxiously awaited Saturday and our first fishing trip of the year.

I was able to make a decent amount of progress on 28thirty. Here she is as of about 7:00 a.m. this morning:

I will probably shorten the sleeves because 19" sleeves sound just too darn long for me. Or perhaps 3/4? Or I'll make another with 3/4 sleeves? I know I'll make one, if not two, more of these. Cropped, for sure, and I think I'll do one with the full-length sleeves and one with 3/4 sleeves. I'm excited to make the cropped (original) version because what I noticed when making this one is that the yoke feels like it takes FOREVER, yet once you separate the sleeves, it's done practically before you know it. The shaping helped the full version move along, but I kept having to stop and try it on to make sure I got the length and shape I wanted.

I had a fit of scarf frenzy last night as well. I swatched for a lace pattern (oops, can't remember off-hand the name but it was in Knitter's Review) with some extra Denimstyle and Moda Dea Silk n' Wool. Not sure if either is really right for that pattern, but I'll figure it out and get something made out of those.

I'm in a major-league mood to liberate some crap yarns from my stash. This morning I thought I'd try to be creative and see if there was anything I could do with a less than desirable shade of Lion Brand Homespun. All it took was a few stitches on plastic needles for me to throw my hands up and the yarn out. There's more upstairs - make no mistake, it will soon join it's friend in the trash. I wouldn't even give that stuff away. I, by no means, consider myself a yarn snob, but I honestly can't believe I ever considered that Homespun as one of my favorite yarns. I'm over it and I won't go back.

Anyway, I guess that's all for today. I'll work some here the rest of the afternoon, knit some on 28thirty, and then it's off to Eden Prairie for a soccer game. I'm cautiously optimistic about this one and the girls have chosen once again to wear their confidence-building mojo-cookin' black jerseys. They're awesome!

2008-06-13T11:41:00.003-05:00

I've got great news...I'm wearing my Lutea Lace-Shoulder Shell for the first time!

The link above takes you to Angela Hahn's blog (the designer) who shares her many adventures with pattern submission and pattern modifications. If you'd like to make one too - and have the Summer '07 IK - check out her site (and IK's errata) because you'll find lots of great tips to make this your favorite summer knit.

On that note, the calendar may say it's June 13 and in theory that should be a fairly summery time of year. We are, however, hovering at 66 degrees with strong and very cool winds a-blowing. I am determined to get some wear out of this, my first warm-weather knit - even if I have to shiver my behind off to do so!

I finished another She-Knits bag yesterday. This is Lorin:

I modified her slightly from the original pattern. After the base, I increased enough to allow for two more motifs than originally called for - I think it was 16 stitches more. Then after pattern #2, I decreased 8 stitches around on two separate rows (with straight rows in between) to get back to the original number of stitches to finish off. I also made pattern #2 a little wider. I'm not sure about the I-cord straps yet. A little too long for me so we'll see how she wears. No biggie if they don't work out. I'll just cut them off and buy something to work better.

I have several things nearly ready to fly off the needles. Firstly, my Knit it Down sweater - remember this one, with only one sleeve?

Well, it's a couple sleeve ribbing rounds shy of all done and I couldn't be happier. It looks great - a little less fitted than the original photo on the cover of Creative Knitting - but very comfy and the perfect layer for a cool spring-summer-fall day. You take your pick!

28thirty from Zephyr Style is one that is surprising the heck out of me. I'm making it with Bernat Denimstyle as well and I love it! It's cloud-soft and really nice to work with. I liked the pattern when I first saw it but fell in love with it when I saw so many nice full-length versions on Ravelry. Here's the only photo I have of the collar, though I am nearly done with the body:

What I found as I made it was that I think the cropped version would be extremely flattering and very good for my almost-short 5'5" stature. I have a tendency to look rather squatty if I don't plan my outfit just right and a short cardi would do wonders to help visually stretch me out a bit. So would losing some weight, but that's a whole 'nother issue. I think I'll make the cropped version in TLC Essentials. I have a boatload of sage green that is begging to be made into something. I think acrylic would suit this pattern just fine.

It's Friday people! What are you doing this weekend? I'm crossing my fingers that tomorrow the wind will die down enough to facilitate our first fishing trip of the year. The hail storm on Memorial Weekend incapacitated our truck such that we had no way to pull the boat - much to my sons' dismay. We finally got it to the adjustor, then to the body shop for a windsheild (body work is on hold until July) so now it's back and ready to haul the ol' Crestliner. Sunfish, here we come!

The plan for Sunday is to take everyone to see Kung Fu Panda at the "big movie" as Lucas calls it. He has been to a few movies at the theater and each time it's a bit of an ordeal. I think he gets a little sensory-overloaded and overwhelmed and thus wants to spend the first 20 minutes of the movie in the bathroom. We've prepared him though and he really wants to go see this movie. Again, crossing fingers that we can all go out and have a good time together.

Time to go get some work done, then I'm plopping on the couch for an afternoon of knitting. At my office, on Friday the 13th's, they always take the afternoon off to go bowling and have pizza - since I can't join them, I may as well have my own little yarn party here, right?

Enjoy the weekend, everyone!

My brain is on cruise control.

2008-06-04T07:19:00.002-05:00

Thus, I forget things easily...like the whole reason I started talking about my Hourglass Pullover woes yesterday!

Like I was saying. It's a great sweater. The shaping is perfect, it looks great, color is awesome, fits like a flattering glove - I just have my own personal issue with things touching my neck.

So what am I going to do about it? Here's my dilemma. Do I keep the sweater as is and hope that I get over my creeped-out neck feeling? Or, do I take matters in to my own hands and try to steek the sweater and make it a cardigan?

I've never steeked before, not to mention this is a sweater that was finished with lower and neckline hems. I (in theory) could rip out the neckline and start the hem finish lower, but I really don't want to do that. Plus, now that it's been worn and washed a few times, is it really going to work up the same way?

I just don't know. Another solution would be to just make another sweater. After I finished the first one, I did immediately think how lovely it would be to have a cotton Hourglass. Perhaps I'll do that and when the time comes to think about wearing wool again, I'll reconsider the first Hourglass.

I'm pleased to say that today is the last day of teacher gift knitting! Fluffy Lap Blanket #5 is one purl row away from the bind off. Weaving ends will be minimal since I tried to weave as I went along. I have two washcloths all tied up with soap ready to go and two more blocking. I may try to make a few more, but I also have a lot of work to do today so if not, no biggie. I'd like to do something for the moms who helped me out this year with rides. I think I might do the basket liners from Mason-Dixon Knitting. I might even splurge on EuroFlax for it too!

No photos today, but perhaps if I get ambitious, I'll drum some up for later.

Who let in the wet sheep?

2008-06-03T14:14:00.003-05:00

Naw, it's just wash day! For Mr. Greenjeans, Ms. Oblique, and the redheaded step-child Hourglass. What better way is there to spend an overcast June 3rd when it's 57 degrees outside?

It's about time, really. This is the first washing of Oblique. I blocked each piece separately prior to seaming, but then I was so in love, I couldn't part with it for a wash/block. I've worn it everywhere and the itch on my neck is starting to get to me, so hopefully a soak in Sweater Soap will have solved that.

Laziness kept me from washing the others. All my wool things have been sitting in a heap on the upstairs hallway floor for a couple months collecting dog hair. Mr. Greenjeans will be a nice one to have clean again. I still adore that sweater for its simple and stylish practicality.

Why do I call Hourglass the red-headed step-child, you ask? Well, it's beautiful enough - I love the color of the yarn, the design, the hems, the fit...mostly the fit. This is one case where Ravelry did not work in my favor.

You see, nearly everyone commented on the neck turning out all Flashdance-y and nearly everyone commented that they solved this problem by knitting 3 more sets of decrease rows on the yoke before starting the neck hem. Or they said they wished they had. I foolishly thought I'd be fine by blindly following what everyone else said and taking it as a personal truth. My reality, however, is that the sweater would have been just fine and indeed, preferable, without those 3 extra rows. It hits my neck it such a way that scratchy or not, it irritates the heck out of me. It could be because of my thyroid nodules, but nevertheless, the neckline bothers me too much to wear it.

The other thing I've realized about my sweater preferences is that I am gravitating towards cardigans. For me, they are more wearable, have more style options and best of all, I can take them off if I get too warm. I never used to have that problem, but lately I've been overheating something fierce. Maybe it's just that I have 10-15 extra pounds hanging on. There are so many cute ones though, that it's difficult to choose. My queue and favorites lists are brimming with the best of them and I know there are more I want.

Lastly, I'm trying very hard to stick to my yarn diet. Today I scored my last 2 balls of Faded Khaki Denimstyle - go the the call last week that my order was in. I also snagged a ball of Lion Wool in Sage for $.97. I couldn't pass that up. As luck would have it, the Denimstyle was marked down even further than what I'd already paid for it and the difference paid for my Lion Wool and a ring pop for B, with some change left over.

Yesterday, I bought Lace Style by Pam Allen. I'm a little obsessed with the cover pattern. I'm going to swatch for that with my multitudes of Patons Shetland Chunky Tweeds in Earthy Brown.

I do believe I need to take a little nap before L gets home from school. I've been trying to work and losing a hard fought battle with the Sandman. I plan to finish the last Fluffy Lap Blanket tonight and block all the Mason Dixon Washcloths tomorrow and be ready for gift-giving on Thursday, the last day of school. After that, all the knitting is selfishly for me!

Remember, play fair and see ya next time!

Knitting Fantasies

2008-05-30T10:04:00.002-05:00

I cast on Fluffy Lap Blanket #5 and though I still love the pattern and the product, after making 4 of them, I'm ready to be done. In the beginning, I'd thought I would keep knitting until I'd used all the yarn, but there's a considerable amount left. Here they are:

Yesterday, as a distraction, in a moment of impulsive "I have enough money in my PayPal account to buy this and I even have the yarn and I really want to make it"-ness, I bought the pattern for 28thirty, a Zephyr Style pattern. It's so cute and it's perfect for my white Denimstyle! It feels like a cloud.

Also, in a different moment of impulsive stash diving meets magazine inspiration, I cast on the Incan Pullover from the cover of the latest KnitSimple. One iteration of this pattern is in the second row when you go to the link. I'm using some $1 clearance yarn from Crafts Direct. It's actually pretty nice yarn. It's a 50/50 Tencel/acrylic blend that has a slight texture to it. I have a little bit of a gauge issue but I should be fine with as generous as the sizing is for this pattern.

Along with my active knitting fantasies, I have some that are still only in my head. #1 of which is the Endpapers Shawl from the Knitter's Book of Yarn. That shawl has been at the forefront of my mind ever since I first saw it, yet I have not seen any FO's in blogland or Ravelry. Could it be that I am the only one entranced by this pattern?

I've been contemplating various less expensive yarn choices than Koigu. I've never even held Koigu! I think I may have some options at KnitPicks now that they've expanded the colors in several of their yarn lines.

Anyway, that's the knitting life I'm leading right now. As for the rest of it, I have work piled up that needs some attention so that I can hopefully get some knitting time in this afternoon. Tomorrow I'm spending the night at a hotel with a water park along with my daughter and the other moms/girls in her Girl Scout troop. Should be fun times, but I'll miss out on several hours of knitting and need to make that up somewhere.

Has it really been this long?

2008-05-29T10:51:00.003-05:00

Good grief! Give me a day off and I'll take a month! I really do love blogging - I just have to get into the habit again of doing it regularly.

So what's been going on? Well, we're patiently waiting for consistent spring-like weather. It was 39 degrees here a couple days ago. Right now we're sitting at a rainy 52. Not too bad - at least there's no snow!

We did, however, have some severe storms last Sunday. Here's what the north side of our house looked like after the baseball-size hail:

Here's one of the hail stones. This photo was taken 30 minutes after the hail stopped and it had probably been on the ground for 45:

Here's what happened to my poor mom's car. She was visiting so her car was outside:

We are going to need a new roof, siding, 1 window, an exterior light, and gutters. Our truck took a beating as well. Both my mom's car and our truck will likely be totalled. Eek. Hopefully this storm was not a sign of things to come this summer. I'm going to stock up on batteries just in case.

Ok, on to the knitting. I've been heavily into the 2008 Fluffy Lap Blanket Bonanza. If you're on Ravelry, you can find the details here. One more to go and then I'll pound out a few more Mason-Dixon Washcloths. Those two patterns are my favorite teacher gifts. Fast, easy, impressive looking, and always appreciated. What could be better?

I bought my first skein of Malabrigo Chunky yesterday at Silver Creek Cabin. The color is Stonechat.

I was forced to buy this after seeing Parikha Mehta's Dolores Park Cowl. I simply had no choice. Plus I needed some yarn therapy after signing up for a stupid safe driving course to keep a ticket off my record. I bought it, wound it, and promptly knit it up. Like it? I adore it!

I definitely can wait for winter weather, but believe me when I say I'll be looking for any opportunity throughout the rest of spring and summer to wear this. I think this could be a new fave for gift giving as well. At $11 a skein, it's pretty darn economical too.

I suppose that's about it for now. I'll be casting on Blanket #5 today - Oh, and I got the call from JoAnn that my Denimstyle in Khaki has arrived! Yay! I'll get it tomorrow and I hope I will finish that sweater (from my last post) over the weekend. It's all good!

Have a great Thursday!

I'm really trying!

2008-04-29T06:20:00.006-05:00

This spare laptop isn't cutting the mustard - every time I try to post anything, I.Explorer shuts down on me. I have photos and stuff, doesn't it know that? I'll give it a shot.

First and most importantly, the 1st Communion Dress is almost done! All that's left is the slip and the zipper and I WILL finish it today. I don't have to leave the house at all and can concentrate completely. My other motivation is my root canal redo tomorrow. I'm sure I won't feel like sewing after that and I don't need this pressure hanging over my head anymore. Plus, the big day is Sunday. I need to get the dress done and out of the house.

I've run into a crossroads with the Knit It Down sweater from Creative Knitting, January 2008. It's a great sweater and I want to live in it. However, I need one more ball for the second sleeve and one more ball is not to be found anywhere. I'm debating about whether I should drive down there again and special order it for $2 a ball and no shipping or order it online for more plus shipping. Maybe Friday I'll do the special order thing. I really want to wear this sweater!

I crocheted the Boteh Scarf (scroll down) out of my languishing Knit Picks Shine Sport in Hydrangea. Yeah, I know, I still have to weave in ends and do a quick steam blocking, but it is pretty cool, huh? There was one error in the magazine pattern that was easy to spot and only meant I had to rip out one of the motifs. No biggie. It moved along really quickly and I love the results.

Hmm, what else have I been working on while my laptop has been causing me unnecessary amounts of stress? Oh, I added eyelets to my Big Bag. That was fun! If I'm not careful, I could go eyelet-happy! Now I want some black rope to thread through, knot, and use as a shoulder strap.

I also purchased the She-Knits patterns Marly and Lorin from Sharon's Ravelry pattern store. I finished Marly in only a couple days and felted her yesterday. I checked her after about 6 minutes of agitation - not enough. However, 5 minutes later, she'd gone too far. Good to know. I had to really wrestle her onto the trash can I used for blocking. That was also due in part because I didn't carry my yarn loosely enough through the slip stitch patterns. It's that first pattern up by the handles is the one I really have to watch out for. Now I know.

I made the optional pocket according to Sharon's directions, then I added another smaller pocket hoping it would felt down to cell phone size. The pocket is a bit wider than desirable for my size phone, but the height is perfect. Again, now I know.

I wish I had known all of this stuff about pockets when I made the Big Bag. I love that bag dearly and think it has great potential, but it REALLY needs pockets. Otherwise it's just a huge black hole! The stupid thing is of course I could have figured out how to add pockets if I'd just taken a moment to think, but literal me didn't think to depart from the instructions and add a pocket!

Another irritation is that I had a magnetic snap floating around my desk for nearly a year. Not two weeks ago, while cleaning my desk, I tossed the snap thinking I wouldn't be using it. Grrr. Oh well, nothing a trip to Wal-mart can't cure.

As I catalogued the wool stash in Ravelry the other night and contemplated which colors to use for Lorin, I realized that Marly and Lorin are almost the identical bag. The slip stitch patterns and sequence are exactly the same! I felt a little stupid for buying both patterns when I could have just winged it for either one, but I'm feeling better about it now. Marly is top down and Lorin is bottom up. And their handles are different. Both of these patterns can help serve as a base for any future designs I might come up with on my own. Yes, it would be rather shocking for me to design something myself, but I have Knitting Never Felt Better by Nicky Epstein and I'm feeling fearless.

Well, I promised myself I'd finish the dress today and I went ahead and told my SIL it would be done today, so I'd better make good and get going. Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Does food still matter in restaurants?

2008-04-22T13:17:00.002-05:00

I'd like to call today "Stating the Obvious" Tuesday.

I'm listening to an episode of the Bon Appetit podcast from last summer and the interviewer just asked this post's title question of a chef opening a new restaurant. I could hardly believe my ears! Hmmm, let's see here...DUH!!!!

I had to laugh. Nothing much else to add to the "Stating the Obvious" theme of today except that organza strewn with cute little satin rosebuds with satin ribbon leaves is friggin' impossible to cut and sew!

What was I thinking? Ooh, this is cute! I bet Emma will like this! Isn't this great? Oh yeah, she loves that, use THAT!

I tried my darndest to position the skirt overlay pattern piece on plain areas of the fabric, but with the curved front edge it was impossible to get it to lay on completely plain areas. I ended up cutting out several roses that fell in the seam allowance.

Cute break...B just put his "bug hat" that he made in preschool on my head! He said "it has my name on it, but you can wear it." Awwww!

Well, I'm gonna go dive into the organza and we'll see who surfaces first. I really gotta get busy with the photos!

Good Luck Monday!

2008-04-21T18:50:00.002-05:00

I am going to try this out as a weekly installment...sometimes "good" good luck, sometimes "not-so-good" good luck. That's my kind of day today.

It started out innocent enough. We hit 72 degrees today! If I'd stayed in direct sunlight, I would have actually burned! With the winter we've had, that's a milestone indeed. I bought the ribbon trim for the 1st Communion Dress, tailor's chalk (finally!), and 6 more balls of DenimStyle in white - yes, I know I need only one more ball of khaki to finish my sweater, but it was all out and it was still on sale and it never goes on sale and I love it and I know I'll use it...yada yada yada.

I punched eyelet holes in my Big Bag. I bought an EmbellishKnit only to realize that it really isn't what I'm looking for, so the Big Bag is still without handles. But it's got the eyelets and that was mighty fun to hammer them in on a 72 degree day in Minnesota!

The real good fortune didn't hit until I went to the dentist. That right there should be your tip-off. My 5 1/2 month old root canal has been bothering me again. More accurately, I was near tears last week. Not much of a shock, but he has to redo it. I chuckled and asked if there was a warranty on root canals and he said yes, they will do it for no charge. Hey, there's my good luck!

So I'm on amoxicillan and Vicodin, if needed, and I go under the drill on April 30. Ick.

The capper for the day is that at the end of this beautiful day, a storm front moved in and the thunder and lightening started just in time to rain out A's soccer practice.

As for knitting/crocheting, I'm at a crossroads. I'm still on my Oblique-high and not sure where to go from there. I started the Aran Accent Vest from the Patons Cables booklet using my delphinium blue Wilton hand-dyed wool. It really does look wonderful. My mom and I had talked once of making things to enter into the State Fair and this might just be it. No pics yet, but soon. I did pick up some more Decor in First Spring to hopefully finish the Lady's Kangaroo Sweatshirt. That's gonna be another good one.

Anyway, I'm going to go take meds and sink into the couch for an hour or two. Sleep tight!

2008-04-15T14:18:00.004-05:00

Frustration of a different sort has dogged my existence for the last several days. Last Wednesday evening, my work laptop crashed!

It's not even that old so I have no idea why it would do such a thing. Worse yet, apparently my 'My Documents' folder - where I keep everything related to work AND all my blog photos - has not been updated like I was told it would be. Everything is gone. Stinky fish face!

I'm finally sort of back in the saddle today. My darling Mr. T works a mere 5 miles from the office I'm never in so he offered to do the exchange of the dead laptop for the replacement laptop. My day today has been taken up with trying to get everything set up properly on the replacement. That's always a pain. Thus, blogging and updating photos on Ravelry. Now on to the big news...

I finished Oblique!! I couldn't be happier. I had some issues with picking up the stitches for the collar, but once I worked that all out, it went along just fine and the results speak for themselves.

It could use a full blocking - each piece was blocked prior to assembly and not afterward yet - but it is very nice and I'll get some good wearing out of it and block it again after it's first washing.

What else have I been working on? The Knit it Down seamless raglan from Creative Knitting. It's from one of the issues this past winter and this sweater was the reason I bought the magazine (it's on the cover). In fact, I don't think I ever even noticed it on the shelves before this issue.

I'm using Bernat DenimStyle. It's a yarn I've always been intrigued by because it's a cotton blend and it has an interesting marl effect...and let's face it, it's inexpensive. I have not been disappointed.

The pattern is really great. It has a neat wide ribbed collar and a deep v-neck. It is truly a seamless sweater too - no sewing at all, not even at the underarms. Even the little cross action at the base of the v-neck is achieved by passing stitches over one another. I would have finished it by now except I'm out of yarn. I'd only bought 2 balls at first because I knew I wanted to try it but didn't know what I was going to make. I settled on this and blasted through those two balls but when I went back for more, there were only 2 left. Tomorrow I'm going to check another JoAnn and see if they have one more ball.

I recently purchased Stitch n' Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker. I enjoy this and "Nation" because of the good instruction. I decided to try Cupcake with what I thought was my 6 balls of Knit Picks Shine Sport in Apricot. I was nearly to the armhole shaping when I ran out and I could not find the 6th ball! I'm not even sure I had 6 balls. Blah!

I bought more Shine Sport off Ravelry. It was supposedly Apricot, but it's not even close to the right color. I improvised with some Aunt Lydia Shimmer. It looks good, but the gauge is a little larger in that area now so I'm not really sure how it will all work. I'm going to leave it as a tank and see what happens.

For now, I'll keep on with whatever WIP's I find and hopefully continue to get something done on the 1st Communion Dress each day. I'm nearly through the cutting out stage, which is by far my least favorite. The pressure is mounting, but I can deal.

Love the Oblique, but I'm FRUSTRATED!!

2008-04-09T12:45:00.002-05:00

I picked Oblique back up and finished the sleeves...Yay!

I did the front bands...Yay!

I sewed the raglan seams...Yay!

I can't pick up the stitches for the collar...FISH PASTE!

The problem is that I can't pick up the correct number of stitches...I'm way over. My solution? Stalk knitters on Ravelry who have finished this sweater and ask everyone for their magic ratio for picking up stitches for this collar. So far I have one response and it is quite helpful. I'll keep waiting into the evening to see what else comes along.

I went to JoAnn today while B. was at preschool. I needed several various sewing supplies for the 1st Communion Dress that has yet to be launched, but there is still plenty of time. I also was pleasantly suprised to find out (at the checkout counter) that Bernat DenimStyle was on sale for $3! I bought some on a whim a couple weeks ago and last week I cast on for the top-down raglan from Creative Knitting - I think November '07?? I blasted through those two skeins and bought the last two in the store today. I'll need one more to finish, but I'll find that later. It's so soft and will be the perfect sweatshirt-y sweater for cool spring/summer evenings - that is if it ever turns into either of those seasons.

I also picked up some 100% cotton for that cute two-toned bag in Interweave Crochet...the name escapes me right now, but I'd seen it in the preview and knew I had to make it. The yarn is purchased and I may start tonight. No wait, probably tomorrow. The Wild play in their first 1st round playoff game tonight and crochet is something I can't do without looking. The top-down raglan will be my hockey knitting tonight.

Hold on...Weatherbug is chirping at me. Good grief...we have a winter storm watch from tomorrow evening through Saturday. Somebody tell these weather people that it's not winter anymore?!?!?!?!? They're saying 12" on Friday. There have been times over the past few wimpy winter years when I've lamented over the lack of snow and "real" winter weather. This is ridiculous though. It's going on mid-April and I want to see some green!

Ok, now I'm in a funk. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have had enough feedback from my stalking to get going with confidence on the collar for Oblique. I want that sweater in the worst way and I feel like a caged bird while I try to figure out something as stupid as what ratio to use when picking up stitches. Oh well, it is what it is.

Maybe there will be pictures tomorrow? Have a great day and cheer for the Wild!

It's Monday...how 'bout some more snow?

2008-04-07T09:12:00.002-05:00

It's official, I live in the craziest weather state in the entire U.S. of A. Let me tell you about the past week and I'm sure you'll agree with me. Last Monday, March 31 (when I last posted), gave us 6" of new snow. It snowed the entire day and into the night. I protested and refused to shovel. The week continued and slowly warmed up enough to melt the snow by Thursday afternoon. It made it up to 60 according to the thermometer in my van, but it was windy so it felt a bit cooler than that.

Then came Friday and it was like heaven. The boys and I walked Sam down to the park. They played at the playground and I walked Sam around and around the grounds because he - like all of us - have a few winter pounds to shed. It was 60 degrees and we were out without jackets. You just can't fully appreciate how wonderful that feels until you've also experienced standing outside in -30 F with windchills of -40 F.

Saturday was even better - it got up to 65!!! Spring in Minnesota is hilarious because on the first good day everybody is outside from sun-up to sun-down and beyond. We've been so starved for fresh air. My daughter wore a tank top, shorts and flip flops. We and the two neighbors behind us all had fires and all the kids ran between yards playing together. I raked up the mucky, mildewy grass to get some air flow in there. Mr. T and I went to Home Depot and bought a new grill. Then we went to Target and bought T-ball sets for both boys. THEN we went to Wal-mart and bought a bigger bike for B. to replace his little 12"-er. They were all thrilled. We went to bed smelling like a campfire. Doesn't get much better than that.

Sunday was like someone flipped a switch. It rained all day. And it was cold, but just enough above freezing to keep the rain from turning into snow. The boys wanted so badly to play with their T-ball sets again, but they settled for cruising around the unfinished basement on their scooters.

Which brings us to today...and more snow. It isn't enough to cover the grass, but it is stuck to everything. Can we finally say enough is enough?

The next person to say "global warming" is gonna get it.

I refuse to shovel on March 31st!!!!

2008-03-31T15:38:00.003-05:00

Yeah. Spring is gone. It's been snowing ALL DAY LONG! You know it's bad when even the kids are sick of snow. L. looked out the window this morning and said "no, no, NO!!!" He wants to go fishing and ride his bike. Me too. I want some tulips, I want some daylilies, but most of all, I just want to see something green outside. I saw the first robin of the season on my deck yesterday, most likely scoping out the nest that is on the rafters underneath, but today the poor thing is probably hiding somewhere thinking "what's going on here?"

I'm still procrastinating on the 1st Communion Dress (I'm gonna start Wednesday when B. goes back to school and I have the house to myself), but that makes for some exciting new quick projects! Look what I did...

It's the Felted Striped Tote from One Skein by Leigh Radford. This puppy was absolutely enormous pre-felting. It could have been a just-below-the-knee length dress for me. Now it is felted to about 12" high and 14" wide. A bit smaller than I'd hoped, but still nice. The side pleats are especially cool.

Here's the finished photo of my Baby's Got a Brand New Big Bag. The colors are hard to see on the bottom (brown and purple) but the whole thing looks nice in real life. I love this one, but I do think it needs a shoulder strap to really be functional for me. I can't see myself carrying this bad boy around by the little handles. I might try to make some inside pockets for this. Or I might not. We'll see how I feel after using it.
Now this, I'm excited about! It's the Boteh Scarf (scroll down) from the Spring 2007 Interweave Crochet. I nabbed this magazine a week ago at my local yarn shop and finally gave it a try today with some Shine Sport in Hydrangea and a G hook. It's turning out really nice. Very drapey and soft.
This is my attempt at willing spring into fruition. This scarf is destined for wearing with my jean jacket should the snow ever melt and temps reach jean jacket warmth. It seems like it's never going to happen. Of course I know it will, but when you've had 5 solid months of snow cover, things start to look bleak.

Spring is here...today.

2008-03-28T14:22:00.003-05:00

It's 43 degrees and the kids went out to play on the actual sidewalk with their scooters! That means the snow has finally melted from the sidewalk! It's not totally gone yet and I think I heard snow mentioned in the weekend forecast, but it really can't last long, right?

I finished the knitting for Baby's Got a Brand New Big Bag this morning while watching Angel (from 5-7 a.m.), and I just got done with the felting. It's a little tricky getting the thing formed into the correct shape because I can't find a box the right size, but I think it will be good. I still can see some of the stitches, but it's still felted enough to keep all those little ends from coming loose. After I give it a fuzz-cut, it will be great. It's quite big and the handles got a bit out of shape, but I'm planning to put a shoulder strap on and that should help. I'm just glad I was able to use up every last scrap of my chewed up skein of hand dye; right down to the mini sample skein. I no longer feel like I lost a skein when Sam let loose on it.

I started the felted bag in One Skein this evening as well. I have many little bits of other hand dyes that I couldn't throw away and some more mini test skeins. Both would be perfect for the stripe pattern in that bag. I'd hoped to get a start on that at the orthodontist office this morning, but it was packed and my boys were less than patient. That's ok though. I can always count on my evening knitting time.

I'm looking forward to a nice little weekend. I made lasagna for all those in my house who aren't allergic to dairy and I expect to sit in my spot all evening knitting happily. As an early Mother's Day gift, my husband bought my mom and I tickets to Jane Eyre at the Guthrie Theater and we're going tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. I gotta give the guy credit - he really pays attention. He could hardly miss on this one though. I read it again last fall (it's my favorite book EVER), rented the movie and watched it nonstop while I had it, then watched it on PBS. My mom has never read it and doesn't know the story so it will be great fun for her, I hope.

So it should be a productive and fun weekend. I will have a dry new bag by Sunday and hopefully another one well on it's way. Perhaps I'll get back into the Oblique groove and try to at least finish the sleeves. Everything beyond that is gravy. And I'll psych myself up for the 1st Communion sewing. By trying not to think about it.

Oh, and I picked up the spring Interweave Crochet and Vogue Knitting. Yippee!

Okay, now it's time to occupy my spot. Have a great weekend!

Yarn Eradication is a Goooooooood Thing!

2008-03-27T10:21:00.006-05:00

Evil grins abound today as I make stash yarn disappear! It's great! The best part? I finally get to use the Sam-eaten skein of my beloved hand dye!

This was the stuff I dyed with Wilton Icing Colors. Loved it! Then one day Sam got bored inside his crate and picked through the bars until he caught hold of one of the skeins. By the time I found it, it had been slightly peed on and chewed into itty bitty bits. I couldn't bear to throw it away so I washed it, untangled it, wound it back up, and wondered what the heck I could ever do with it.

Turns out Baby's Got a Brand New Big Bag is the perfect pattern! My hand dye looks great paired with leftover purple and brown and a felted bag is ideal for using up little yard-or-so-long bits of yarn without worrying about hiding ends. It's moving along super fast - I just started it last night - and I'm so excited about having a new bag. The bag has only a slit-type handle at the top so I might add a purchased shoulder strap when all is said and done. We'll see.

Wanna see the Fun in the Sun Hat?

I used two almost-complete skeins of TLC Cotton Plus (love that stuff!) that I had leftover from the crocheted bunnies. Yeah, I could have used the skeins to make 3 more washcloths EACH, but I was in a crochet mood and I'd just found a couple back issues of Interweave Crochet - Spring and Fall 2007 to be exact. Whee! Love them! I fell in love with the hat and had to give it a try. It is a little small for me but I'm sure I could will it into size if I wore it enough. Perhaps A. would wear it? One never can tell.

Burp cloths are moving along swimmingly. Here's the 4 I've finished so far.

The green one on top is my favorite. Each one is better than the last and I just love making these. The 5th one is even better than any of these, but I'll wait to post a photo until it's done. My friend's due date is T-minus 19 days so I'm gonna keep plugging away on these.

Next, the Mason-Dixon Washcloth frenzy. One ball of red TLC Cotton Plus made 3 washcloths and they're just so soft and nice! I had just enough yellow left over from the hat to make another. I also have enough Cotton Ease for at least one more. I have a lot of Peaches/Sugar n' Creme, but I'm hesitant to use it for these cloths because I don't want them to shrink and get goofy looking - at least not right away. These are going to be for teachers who don't get the blankets. Don't make me think of the blankets yet!

Lastly, Annette Petavy's Pillow from CrochetMe. I'm using worsted weight acrylic from the stash and an I hook, but following the pattern exactly. I stopped after 15 strips for the one on the right and still have a few more strips to go on the left one. I'll crochet backs, stuff, and toss on our sofa. My family room is looking dark and bland lately and I'm hoping these will help to brighten things up a bit.

This is a lot of stuff. What's gotten into me, you ask? I'm doing my usual thing of "I have something I have to do but I really don't want to do it so instead I'm going to enter a stage of profound yarn catharsis and produce so much that I delude myself into thinking I'm actually using my time productively."

The thing I have to do is make my niece's 1st Communion dress. I'm ready to start and I know I can do it, but it's a big and quite important project so I'm waiting for the planets to align just right before I start and that is NOT this week. It's spring break, A. has been at WI Dells with the neighbors so it's just the boys and I. Now really people, can you see the logic in laying out mounds of white (WHITE) satin, lining, tulle, and organza with two boys running rampant and just waiting for the opportunity to strike? Me neither. I'll start after they go back to school next week.

So in the meantime, I'm trying to make yarn go away. There's nothing more satisfying than throwing away bits of yarn too small to make anything with and watching the pile lessen. Plus, when I'm all done, I can buy new yarn guilt-free!

Is it spring yet?

2008-03-21T10:39:00.004-05:00

This is what I did on Thursday and Friday. You like? I've had the yarn for several months now but finally got off my arse and made A. her Fiber Trends felted clogs. They are GIGANTIC! I have unshakable faith in Bev Galeskas's instructions however and I'm certain they will felt down perfectly.

I'd forgotten just how quickly these slippers come together. I knitted them both on Thursday and felted them this morning. I haven't been able to get her to stop sliding across the wood floors long enough to take a photo, but I'll get one some day. She's been invited to the Wisconsin Dells with our neighbors for spring break and really wanted to take these with so I tried drying them in my dryer, on the rack, on extra low heat. Worked like a charm. She spent some time trimming off all the fuzzies and they are perfect. Finally, a "knitted thing" she actually likes!

Ok, now into the meat of the post - I'm staring out my window, this lovely March 21 - first day of spring, I might add - and looking at a beautiful winter wonderland.

Except is MARCH 21, THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING!!! Haven't we had enough yet?

I know there's a lot of people out there who think that Minnesota is cold year round, but that's just not true. We get brutal cold winters, but our springs and summers are lovely and warm. This has been the longest winter we've had in a really long time and it's starting to wear on all of us.

Our first snow was sometime back in late October and it never left us. We've had lots of snow and more than our fair share of insane cold. The house has been shut up tight for nearly 6 months. We were just starting to see grass again and now bam, we're hit with more snow. It can't last long, right?

This weather has to be the major contributing factor to the rampant influenza B scare that's running through our town. It actually killed a little 5 year old girl who's preschool classroom is right across the hallway from B's class. L. had it first. 103 fever, couldn't go to his 1st grade concert, puking, you name it. He got better after only 2.5 days though. Mr. T. got it next. I've never seen him that sick and I've known him now for 15 years.

I took care of him and came down with it next. I was sitting in the elementary school listening to the kindergarten registration program when the throat tickle and cough started. By that night, I was down for the count as well. Fever, chills, worst aches of my life, cough, and limp lungs that can't seem to get quite enough air. I *think* I'm starting to rejoin the living again after over a week.

As far as the rest of my yarn world, I've begun to feel the pressure of a friend's baby's impending arrival and the looming of the last day of school - hence, teacher gifts. I tied up some loose ends with some of my other projects (Kanga Sweatshirt and Climbing Cables) by crocheting until I ran out of yarn and those are set aside for now. I'd like to get back on the Oblique horse and get that one done. I went like gangbusters on that for so long and then just stopped. I bought the perfect buttons; now I just need to finish it.

I'm cruising along on the Baby Genius Burp Cloths. I've finished 3 and would like to just keep going and see how many I can do. My friend's baby is due April 15, and then I have 2 cousins who are also expecting in June! Never hurts to have things like those burp cloths on hand for gifts and I have quite enough cotton to last me a while. I have a baby blanket in a box somewhere that only needs a few more inches as well as several baby quilts that only need minimal finishing. I should be good.

The big box of Fluffy Lap Blanket yarn is calling my name too. I plan to shovel those out with wreckless abandon. I won't need as many last year because L. has some of the same teachers as last year - thank goodness! I'm making more Mason-Dixon Washcloths for them. Those are so quick and cute and take so little yarn. I have 4 stashed waiting for blocking and I'll add to that in the days to come, I'm sure.

Oh! AND I've committed to sewing my niece's 1st Communion dress. Yikes! The big day is May 4. I have plenty of time, but I must budget my time accordingly and concentrate. I'll keep you posted!

I must be going through blog-withdrawal or something - better stop for now, but hopefully since I'm starting to feel better, I'll get back into the swing of posting daily. I like that.

Have a wonderful Easter weekend, everybody

It's finished!

2008-03-11T10:43:00.004-05:00

Yippee! I finished my Dusty Miller Cardigan! I don't care what anyone has to say about Red Heart Super Saver - it made a great crocheted sweater! I wanted a workhorse, and I got it. It's comfy, warm, and has beautiful stitch definition. Here she is!

I love crocheted sweaters. It's so fitting that March is National Crochet Month - I didn't even know that when the bug hit me in late February. Much to the dismay of Oblique, the crochet bug is not satisfied yet. I finished Dusty Miller, I'm nearly through the back of the Lady's Kanga Sweatshirt...

...and the estranged back of the Hooded Pullover from Weekend Retreat is quickly being transformed into Climbing Cables from More Crocheted Aran Sweaters.

You might notice that Climbing Cables is the same color as the Fisherman Sweater. Well, I really love that Fisherman Sweater pattern and I know I need that sweater, but I realized that I just haven't been crocheting my cable crossings loosely enough. I'm just not sure I can block the acrylic yarn out enough to make it work. When the Hooded Pullover has been obliterated, I'll continue with the yarn from the Fisherman Sweater. I trekked down to JoAnn yesterday for some more sale priced TLC Essentials and ended up with 5 skeins of Medium Thyme. I'm pretty sure it's destiny is the Fisherman Sweater. I'll make sure to crochet more loosely next time...and enlarge the pattern. The print is teeny and doesn't cut it for my weak 34-year-old cruddy eyes.

I also started the Pillow by Annette Petavy from CrochetMe. I'm using stash yarn exclusively for this. I thought at first that I would make this into a throw, but I like the colors and the patterns so much that I think I might just use this pattern to make several pillows for our couch. Everything in my family room is starting to look dark and character-less so this could be just the punch it needs. I also buckled down and finished Baby Genius Burp Cloth #2 from Mason-Dixon Knitting. I love how the solid color softens the effect of the variegated yarn.

On the home front, while the little buddy was extremely disappointed to miss his concert (he's still talking about it today), his fever finally broke sometime between Saturday and Sunday and he's better now. He had a rough day at school yesterday and cried a couple times about the concert, poor thing. I hope today goes better for him. His teachers decided to re-implement a feedback sheet for him. They hadn't been doing it this year but felt that it could give him the motivation he needs right now to get back on track.

For every stage of his day, he gets either a smiley face or sad face for the following categories: I said "ok", I used nice words, I was quiet, and I walked. The sheet from yesterday is kind of funny. The first stage of his day is reading and he got all sad faces for that, but everything else for the rest of the day has a smiley face. Mr. L. really likes to get smiley faces so I hope this continues to work. His teacher even commented that the afternoon went really well for him. Yay!

Time to get back to work. Miss A. is getting braces in a couple weeks (yippee, hoo ha, hooray) and has an appointment today for impressions and x-rays. It's a 40 minute appointment so I'll bring my crocheting. I'd love to bring Oblique, but I'm very near the sleeve cap and I don't want to have to mess with measuring while in the orthodontist office. Perhaps I'll start another burp cloth. That's mindless enough. Cast on at home, get through the first color change, then go go go!

I'm back!

2008-03-07T10:22:00.008-06:00

I didn't really go anywhere, but things have been unbelievably crazy. It all started with Presidents' Day...

Mr. T had an interview in Salt Lake City for a job in Fort Collins, CO. The interview went really well so I went to work researching special education in the Fort Collins school district. And I scheduled a market analysis on the house. And I started looking at houses. And I started freaking out. Mr. T got offered the job, but after some very serious consideration, we decided he should turn it down. The job looked great, but every thing else was stacked against us, from health insurance to selling our own house. Oh well. What are you gonna do?

Then there's been work. There's a meeting coming up which means I spend several days going nuts getting the agenda ready to send out to the world. It's crazy, trust me on this. Today is D-day for the agenda - it needs to be sent by the close of business today.

Today is also L.'s first grade concert - an event that has been eagerly looked forward to by all - so I expected today to be a mess, considering the whole agenda thing. However, L. woke at 3 a.m. today crying and flushed with very hot cheeks - but he was sound asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow again. He had been talking nonsense so I figured he'd had a bad dream, was kind of sleep walking, and would be fine when he woke up for the day.

Wrong-o! Poor kid had a temp of 103. Needless to say, the poor kid doesn't get to take part in the concert that he's been practicing so hard for. He told me he had to go to school so that I could come and hear him sing. I told him he was sick; his body was hot and we needed to make it cool again. He suggested he wear shorts - now I know we're hardy folk here in MN, but I have to draw the line at -10 F. The concert is not happening for Mr. L.

Little Mr. B. even had to miss preschool. L. was complete dead limp noodle weight when I tried to hoist him up to get him out to the van, then he thought he was going to throw up. He collapsed on the couch again and I had to break it to B. that he couldn't go to school today. Great. Two little boys upset about not going to school.

On a brighter note, I'm on a major crochet kick lately. I've nearly finished the Dusty Miller Cardigan from Jane Snedden Peever's Crocheted Aran Sweaters. I just found out that the book is no longer in print. That's so sad! I've now made 3 sweaters from this book and another sweater from the second book, More Crocheted Aran Sweaters. I just found out that both of these are out of print. Look for them at your library and if you like them, I'm sure there's a way to hunt down used copies or copies on eBay.

This cardigan has gone along great. I'm using Red Heart Super Saver in Linen - ok, all of you fiber snobs can be quiet! I love Red Heart and thought it perfect for this because I want a workhorse cardigan. Plus, it's tax time so a girl has to make do if she's gonna satisfy her need for fiber arts. I still have to crochet the front bands, but I ran out of yarn and did not want to buy a whole 'nother skein. I was trying to figure out how to tastefully use something else from my stash for those bands when I found some more Linen deep in my stash. Yay!

I finally found a destiny for my TLC Essentials in Persimmon! It had previously been intended for the hooded pullover in Patons Weekend Retreat - which I still love - but I started that back when I really had no idea about what size sweater was appropriate for me. I started knitting the large size and though it went along great, it's just enormous. I'll probably knit it someday, but not with this yarn anymore. Yes, back to the new destiny: the Fisherman Sweater! It was originally in Crochet Today!, but now it's a free download on the Coats and Clark website. It's very cool and going along super fast.

And, I started one more crochet project: the Lady's Kanga Sweatshirt from the Bernat Urban Camouflage booklet. I've wanted this for a while, but never really had a good idea of what I wanted. Well, a new destiny has been granted to the Patons Decor in First Spring. Yeah, I know I started another Mr. Greenjeans (of which the body is near completion) with it, but my recent burst of crochet love has brought this pattern back to the front of my mind. If there was mindless crochet, this is it. The yarn feels silky and flexible and the colors are great. I also really love crocheting with variegated yarns because they look so totally different than when they are knitted. The texture of the stitches really makes the colors look great.

One other quick note. I realized that I like the Unisex Knock-Around Cashmere (um, Shetland Chunky) Pullover with the reverse stockinette side out. The pattern is written to be reversible, but I thought that the way I did my seams made it look not so hot. Happily, I was wrong. Having the reverse stockinette stitch side out means that you get to see the cool slipped stitch edging of the panels and mock shoulder seams and - this is the best part - the center panel hangs completely flat rather than pooching out (really, who needs that happening around their middle?). It's great. I'm wearing it right now.

Well, I supposed I've sloughed off from work long enough now. Have a great weekend everyone!

I hear patience is a virtue...

2008-02-21T10:46:00.008-06:00

...but I'm having a very hard time being virtuous!

I subscribed, I paid online, and I'm trying to be patient, but I STILL haven't received my Spring '08 Interweave Knits! It's been below zero for days on end and I need my dose of spring, people!

I'm slowly making my way through the sleeves for Oblique. She isn't making quite the progress I'd hoped for, but my distractions have been many. I've had this rotten flu, which sank in my lungs over the weekend. Luckily my most excellent asthma doc is kind enough to give me an emergency course of prednisone to keep on hand for these very situations. I'm finally starting to feel like myself again.

Another distraction, in a good way, is my girlfriend's baby boy due in April. I had the gift-knitting withdrawals so I'm very pleased to be making things for little Will. Not to mention the serious stash-busting potential. I have enough 100% cotton to make several burp cloths and bibs without ever setting foot in a store. So far I've finished one of each.

I really like this color combo. My next set is going to be even better. I started this one late last night so I haven't had much time with it, but it's looking so great!

I also found out that a cousin of mine is expecting in July...yay! Another baby to knit for - and it's even spaced out enough so that I won't have to knit for two babies at the same time! How thoughtful of them!

Remember I mentioned the mindless knitting I started while watching Lord of the Rings over the weekend? Here's my progress on it. Yep, it's another Mr. Greenjeans.

This time I'm using Patons Decor in First Spring from my stash (there's a theme here...). I had bought 4 skeins for a Clapotis, but made a pair of socks instead and the rest has been sitting here. After seeing a couple Greenjeans in variegated Patons, I got going. I think I will need one more skein to make it all the way through, but that's not so bad.

Lastly, along the same vein of trying to create spring when spring is not even remotely in sight, I've begun my semi-annual kitchen overhaul. The cupboards with dishes were the easy part. I loaded a box full of stuff that I haven't used in at least a year, wiped them down, replaced everything and that was that. The pantry cupboard is another story.

We all know I have a boy with autism. One of the ways we treat this is with the gluten-free/casein-free diet (GFCF diet). I'm also allergic to dairy. We've been doing the diet now for almost 5 years so the cooking part isn't the problem...it's the sheer number of products I need to have on hand. Check out the upper half of my pantry cupboard, which is devoted to all things flour, plus a few cans of chips. It's a deep cabinet, and it's stuffed.

In my former life, these shelves would have been nearly empty. Canisters of white sugar, brown sugar, and wheat flour would have been the only things there. Ok, perhaps also whole wheat flour and bread flour, but big deal.

Now, however, I have the who's who of alternative flours: white rice, brown rice, sweet rice, potato, sorghum, garbanzo, garfava, potato/corn/tapioca starches, and don't forget xanthan and guar gums. Then there's the larger canisters of premixed (by me) Featherlight Flour Blend (Bette Hagman), GF Flour Blend (Carol Fenster), and Quickie Baking Mix (Special Diets for Special Kids 2). Oh yeah, and two kinds of pasta two: rice and wheat.

Yesterday, my kitchen was a cloud of fine GF flour powder as I mixed up fresh batches of all these mixes and tried to make some sense of what I already have. Oye! I gladly put up with the powdery mess of some of these flours, though, because the ladies who developed them have made my life so much easier. These are my favorite flour blends and they are perfect for all my baking. Casein (dairy) free is like tiddly winks compared to the transition to gluten-free, and these flours are fantastic.

I'd love to go more into the GFCF diet, but that will be for another day. Work is beckoning and this post is already far longer than I'd expected. I like doing it though, even if nobody is reading it! Stay warm everyone and have a great day!

Ahh, nice weekend!

2008-02-18T09:51:00.003-06:00

Nice long weekend too! The kids had Friday and today off. I'd hoped to do something fun with them on Friday but I was stuck working most of the day. Luckily, A. was invited to the community center to swim and play basketball with her best friend, so I didn't feel quite so guilty.

L. and B. spent their day much like they do every other: reading, playing trains, doing puzzles, wrestling, watching TV, and the like. I took a few breaks here and there to spend some time playing with them and that worked out well.

The kids came home with a flyer from the school nurse about influenza and the news was reporting that a different strain than that which was covered in the vaccine was going around. Ya think? At that moment I knew that we all have been battling influenza. I'm still trying to get over it, but everyone else is better and that's good.

On Saturday, we decided to go out for dinner at a new local restaurant. Going out as a family has been something I've wanted to do regularly but we've been reluctant because L. has autism and B. is Mr. Instigator Extraordinaire. Well, we decided to take the plunge. The restaurant is a grill/bar so it's naturally noisy and a perfect environment for our boys. We could go and be ourselves and talk and laugh and we all had a great time. The boys even ate well which is usually tricky. It's definitely something we all look forward to doing again. Not only is it nice to just get out, it's a great way for our kids to learn acceptable social behavior - which is especially important to L. because he has autism and social interactions are not as natural for him.

Sunday was another all-day basketball tournament. The girls played as hard as they could, but ended up with 3rd (out of 4 teams). It was a "B" tournament though which has tougher teams and even though they played their hearts out, they just couldn't match up. They had a great chance for 2nd place, but ran out of gas in their 3rd game. Oh well, fun was still had by all and they got a trophy out of the deal.

Not as much knitting this weekend. We popped The Two Towers in the Blu-Ray on Friday night and Oblique isn't mindless enough to be able to watch the movie at the same time. My solution? Cast on another Mr. Greenjeans in some stash yarn: Patons Decor in First Spring. I know I won't quite have enough from my stash to finish it completely, but there's enough to get probably 3/4 of the way through. Doesn't get much more mindless than that. Return of the King went in on Saturday so I was able to make excellent progress on that.

Oblique is on the docket for TV time tonight. Of course I haven't forgotten about her!

Freaky Friday

2008-02-15T12:12:00.007-06:00

It's Friday once again and I'm STILL sick! Tea and Puffs, baby - now that's my idea of a great day! I'm not sure how much more of this my nose can handle. Or my throat. Or my chapped lips. This is getting too darn old, folks. I'm buying stock in TheraFlu.

I'm also a little bitter because this weekend is the big Knit Out & Crochet Too at the Mall of America - a mere hour away from my home - and I can't go! Many things are conspiring against me with this one. I am still sick, but also my niece's birthday is tomorrow and knitting would not be an acceptable excuse to miss that. A. has a Girl Scout meeting in the a.m. and a big report on Coronado with which I promised to help (that would be the Miracle Worker part of my tea mug up there). On Sunday, A.'s basketball team is playing in another tournament because the organizers needed another team to round out the playing field. Three games spanning from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. It's fun to watch basketball and the homework help isn't so bad, but I do wish I could go drown in yarn and people for a few hours.

My consolation is that Oblique is getting closer and closer! I did end up ripping back on one of the fronts and redoing the raglan decreases and I'm much happier with it now. The other front was good as is so I was saved that extra work. When the fronts were ready, I already had the back pinned out and it was nearly dry (thank you lace!) so I pinned the fronts right on top of the back so that I had a good template to follow to get it all lined up right. I'll be blocking it again when finished (probably) so my only real goal here is to get everything behaving better for seaming. Love it!

Can you see the fronts better this way? I like it. I LOVE IT! I can't wait to finish it!

The sleeves are on their way also. Last night I got through the cuffs - felt like it took forever, but I think it was because I knit both cuffs at the same time. This morning while watching Angel from 5-7 a.m. (I'm hooked now and it's totally killing my committment to my morning workout!), I got to the point of starting the sleeve increases.

The photo is kind of dark, but you get the idea. My kids probably can't wait for me to get this finished because it's nearly impossible to keep them off my side of the couch and I just have to have my pattern and my notebook and my pens and my markers and all my assorted garbage set out just so. They don't like it. Even though the chaise end of the sofa is Mom's Spot, they see fit to make me feel like I'm inconveniencing their lives by covering it in knitting paraphernalia. When you have your own house, you too can put your knitting stuff any where you want!

My final note for today regards Valentine's Day. After reviewing our tax situation, Mr. T. and I decided that we wouldn't be giving gifts to each other. However, on Wednesday, he mentioned that he was going shopping for my gift. WHAT??? After we decided not to give gifts, I'd not given one single thought to what I would give him. Frankly I was relieved. He always knows what he's getting me and it ticks me off to no end because I agonize over any gift giving occasion for weeks on end.

I did end up having a pretty good idea and I think he likes it. I bought him some noise-cancelling earbuds for his iPod because he flies a lot for work and will be doing a lot of flying here over the next few weeks. He got me one of those radio transmitter thingys to use to play my iPod over my car radio. I'm very excited about that! Podcasts and audiobooks, hooray!

Okay, back to work people! Have a great day!

6th Avenue Heartache

2008-02-13T15:31:00.005-06:00

I realize I'm probably dating myself here by quoting The Wallflowers, but if you don't know them and are into hip acousitc-y alternative-y Bob Dylan-y sound, check them out. In the meantime, we have a real heartache going on here.

This morning, L's county case manager stopped in for the annual signing of the paperwork fun fest. Prior to her arrival, I took the dog out and put him in his crate so he wouldn't be all bothersome and hairy. About 20 minutes into the visit, Sam starts to stir upstairs. I told her it was the dog just wishing he was down here. Sam starts to bark - and bark repeatedly. I laugh - ha ha! - he just hates knowing there are people down here when he's not. Ha ha ha!

After she left, I went upstairs to release Sam from prison only to find that he'd somehow pulled THREE skeins of my lovely Delphinium Blue hand dyed yarn into his crate. He'd peed a little on two of them (when he saw me and got an incredibly guilty look on his face) so those got a soaking in the sink and are drying (again). The third skein got the worst of it. What used to be 223 continuous yards of bluish-purple dream fiber - is now what you see below:

Rotton dog. Oh well. I guess I can designate this as the swatch and seam skein, though I had a completely different and unscathed skein all set aside for that purpose.

On a happier note, the back is done for Oblique and it's blocking to what I think are the correct measurements. I followed the directions for the medium size but I was knitting it at a tighter gauge than called for so I hope to have it more close to the small size. I'll probably block it again after assembly so I'm not too worried.

I started the sleeves and once I get through this tedious twisted rib, I'll be off and running on those. I'm fighting off the urge to buy another skein of yarn. I *think* I'll have enough, so I'm going to take a leap of faith and see how far I get with what I have. I've impressed myself with this project - I've stuck to it and never strayed once except for the staff meeting, which called for mindless knitting. I'll redo the raglan decreases on the fronts tonight and have the whole thing blocking before bed. Yay!

Work and knitting

2008-02-12T12:19:00.000-06:00

Yesterday's post was actually posted this morning, so I thought I'd clarify a few things. Sunday was when the ripping happened and I finished the back this morning - not yesterday morning. I made sure to only knit yesterday when I felt perfectly alert and at the height of my TheraFlu relief; all was well. Does it all really matter? Heck no! It's only knitting!

Today I'm still feeling sub-par, but my body doesn't ache quite so much and the mercury has risen to a whopping 12 F ABOVE ZERO! It's unbelievable! I've been half expecting to see my neighbor run around in a halter top and shorts. We be hardy folk here in Minnesota!

Alas, with health comes getting back to work - home and otherwise. Laundry is in motion, dishes are done, and I'm back at my piano room desk doing my real job. We had a staff meeting today - translate: set cell phone to speaker AND mute and commence knitting on the Baby Genius Burp Cloth from Mason Dixon Knitting.

My friend, Kathy (the one in light blue from the picture in the previous post), is having a baby boy in April so yay! - I get to knit for someone other than myself! I have great hopes of completing several of these burp cloths and bibs to give to little Will. Perhaps even a Moderne Baby Blanket, if I have the guts for that much garter stitch.

If you're familiar with this pattern - and have really good eyes - you'll notice right away that I started the stripes on the wrong row. I'm not interested in re-casting on cotton yarn so it's gonna stay exactly the way it is. Plus, the so-called "wrong" side is very neat and tidy stripes so the burp cloth will look good no matter which side the spit up lands. What more could a mom want?

Don't get me wrong - I'm done having kids and want another baby like I want a home invasion. However I really love knitting baby things and it makes me nostagic for the time when I was pregnant, especially the first time. I'd been crocheting doilies and other such crap for many years already but I started making more productive use of my time by crocheting little blankets. My mom let me loose on her Hefty Tall Kitchen Garbage Bag stash of Jamie Baby and I made blankets, sweaters, a cardigan/pants set, a bunting, and a whole bunch of booties. I used a bunch of vintage patterns and a couple new ones.

It was so much fun to drag it all along with me to work each day and crochet before work and at my lunch hour. There I was, 22 years old, crocheting around all ages and types of sophisticated business people. I don't think anyone ever said a word to me about what I was working on...oh wait, there was one woman who commented on a blanket I was making, but nobody else. I think people either didn't know what I was doing, or they thought it a major faux pas to actually call attention to it. I think times have changed a little! For one, I don't think I'd be the only one I ever saw making something during her lunch hour and two, I'm sure I'd be chatting away with someone within 5 minutes. It's nice that this whole yarn crafting gig has gained more popularity. I'll have to drag all those old blankies out and photograph them sometime.

Anyway, only a few minutes separate me from relative peace to the chaos that is children coming home from school, so I'd best be away!

Never try to knit when you have a fever!

2008-02-11T11:59:00.000-06:00

Especially not lace!

I had gotten better and went out with my friends Friday night. We went out to eat at Buca di Beppo and we got our pictures back from the photo session we did the last time we went out. Aren't we cute? Not bad for a bunch of 30-somethings! Even though it's been 16 years, a few pounds, and (in my case) several more gray hairs since high school, we pretty much look the same.

So I had a great time, then woke on Saturday to a fever, headache, chills, body aches, sore throat, and runny/stuffy nose. Yippee!

Saturday morning I was bound and determined to pound through my laundry and some housework and while I did get it done, I was completely sapped by midday. I couldn't do much knitting because everything hurt so much, but by gosh I tried.

I was trying to get through the raglan decreases on the back of Oblique. It's not hard, but you really do need to pay close attention and I should have known better than to attempt it while feverish, sleepy, and under the influence of TheraFlu. I kept messing up the diagonal lace patterns. I did a fine job of fixing all the mistakes, but you'd think that after the 6th time of doing so I'd just give up and quit while I was ahead. The raglan decreases seemed to be going well.

Oh no, I wanted to get through that back. On Sunday my fever was a little worse and more persistant, yet as soon as TheraFlu kicked in, I wanted to try to work on Oblique again. When I reached the point of only a couple more raglan decreases before binding off, it was clear that I had way too many stitches on the needles.

The one irritation in the pattern for me - and it probably is just for me - is that I had a little trouble figuring out how to incorporate the diagonal lace patterns into the raglan decreases in such a manner that I actually am decreasing every time. I had to rip the back all the way back to the start of the raglan decreases for good measure.

This time, I carefully counted my stitches and worked the lace pattern such that when I worked a decrease row, I actually was decreasing one stitch from each side every time. This meant that sometimes I actually had to do an sssk or a k3tog in order to keep everything decreasing correctly. When I did it the first time, the way I was working the patterns after the decreases was actually adding a stitch back in and cancelling out the decreases on many of the rows. All was made right however and I bound off the back this morning.

Now I'm faced with another dilemma. Silly me thought that the raglan decrease stitches on the fronts should be kept partially in moss stitch. That's what I thought Veronik meant when she said "work in pattern". Dummy. One look at the picture would have told me that ALL the raglan decrease stitches should stay as stockinette. Arghh! What to do? I could rip back both sleeves to the start of the raglan decreases and do them yet AGAIN!!! Did I tell you that I had already ripped back each one and redid for the same reason that I did the back? Will I ever learn?

Oh well. I'll probably end up ripping back since lately I'm so hell-bent on having everything perfect. I did already cast on for the sleeves though so by the time I finish them, I may no longer care enough. Who am I kidding...I'm sure I'll rip back.

In spite of my own difficulties, I really enjoy knitting Oblique. I love Veronik's patterns because she pays so much attention to detail. I've been drooling over the Strawberry Lace Wrap Cardigan from her book Knitting Classic Style. That might just be the perfect match for my pile of hand dyed Delphinium Blue merino heaven!

For now, I must try to get back to work since I've missed 3 days now due to this illness. Anybody know of a good disinfectant bomb?

Is it really Friday?

2008-02-08T13:40:00.000-06:00

Whoa, what a week! L. is the only one who's been healthy all week. A. didn't make it through yesterday but she's bound and determined to make it today since the entire 5th grade class (those with fewer than 7 late assignments, that is) is going roller skating for this trimester's reward party. B. had to miss out on sledding today at preschool because that darn cough and slight fever haven't quite left him yet. Mr. T. is back at work and I'm doing better as well. I'm going out again with my high school friends tonight so yes indeed-y, I AM better!

Sam made it through surgery just fine. He was just as happy as ever to see A. and me waiting for him. We got a chuckle over the post-op instruction of "restricting his activity for 7-10 days." A. looked at me and said "restrict what?" Precisely. The photo is his typical posture, just picture him in different rooms and you're all set!

That's the blanket A. is making for a school arts and academics awards competition - she'll be really thrilled when she sees it covered in dog hair. That's what you get for leaving it spread out like that!

I got around to taking some better pictures of a couple of FO's. Here's a new pic of the Rustic Love Pullover. I tried for full length, but my arms are only so long.

Next is a modeled picture (finally!) of Teva Durham's Assymetrical Cable Vest from Loop d Loop. I love this and wear this all the time, but Mr. T thinks I should be running around the house saying "it needs more cowbell." SNL, anyone? A. made me swear I'd never wear this to any sporting event of hers. Come ON, people!!

And finally, the piece de resistance...Mr. Greenjeans! I realy love how this turned out. It blocked out perfectly and fits so well! I'm going to wear it with a black short-sleeved t-shirt and jeans tonight for dinner with my friends.

Please excuse the horribly spotty mirror, but this was the best I could do for a full length shot. Eek!

Oblique is moving along nicely. I'm about halfway through the back. I have six balls of yarn, which in theory should be enough, but I'm considering picking up another ball tonight just in case. I hate having to use partial balls but after doing our taxes, perhaps I should see how it all goes before I spend more money!

While I do so love my evenings stretched out on the chaise end of our sectional, tonight I am very willingly sacrificing a night of knitting for a night out with friends. It will be 5 of us who went to high school together, but I've known a few of them longer than that. I met Lynn the summer before 6th grade and we played softball together. I met Kathy on the first day of 6th grade when I was the new kid at school. Katie joined us a few weeks later. We were separated through junior high and we all met up again in high school when Kathy and I joined the poms dance squad. Kathy, Lynn and I cheered hockey all through high school and Katie and Allison joined us our junior year. We've been all over the place since then, but we've remained friends. It's pretty cool. Eating out at an Italian restaurant might be a little challenging since I'm allergic to dairy, but I'm ready for it so I can have a great time with my buds! And it's Kathy's birthday so I'm bringing her a couple Mason-Dixon washcloths with some bath goodies tied inside. Boy is it nice to keep some of those on hand!

Have a great weekend everybody!

Quarantine me, please!

2008-02-06T07:01:00.001-06:00

It's been a rough several days at JRo's House of Knitty. Colds swept through us last week and into the weekend causing a mad Walmart dash for warm mist humidifiers and Vicks VapoSteam. Saturday morning, a mysterious tummy bug hit little Mr. L. causing throwing up, fever, and a general cease to all movement that is always indicative of something not quite right.

Yesterday, I actually called in sick to my job - kind of funny since I work at home - but it had to be done. I felt like crap and knew that this weird tummy thing had hit me too. Miss A. complained of a tummy ache after school and didn't eat dinner. Mr. B. ate like crazy, living up to his "Pig Boy" moniker.

2 a.m. this morning I was awakened by A. throwing up at my bedside. She said it took a while to wake me up. I felt horrible, but what can I say? After my kids hit the sleeping-through-the-night milestone, I was dead to the world. I collapse into bed each night and generally sleep like a stone till the local hard rock radio station hits me in the face at 4:40 a.m.

I took care of her and got her back to bed, but then I couldn't sleep. Luckily I had Oblique to keep me company. I had finished the right front last night but messed up somewhere in the middle of yarn overs and raglan shaping and my stitch count was off. So I'd ripped back last night and got it all taken care of this morning. Both fronts are done and I'm halfway through the back ribbing. This really is a fabulous project. I'm using Patons Classic Wool in Dark Gray Mix and it looks fantastic. Each front took under one ball of yarn, leaving me with not enough for any real project but plenty to add to the feltable wool remnant bin in my closet. I feel a Big Bag comin' on! Or perhaps the stripey felted bag from One Skein. But I digress.

I'm sure today will be another sick day for me. I'm still feeling a little off-kilter, A. is still throwing up, and B. will probably have something going on with him. Sam, the ferocious Golden Retriever has an appointment with the scalpel, for which we need to leave in about 5 minutes. We'll miss him (until tomorrow) but it will be nice not to have to deal with a dog in addition to sicky kids.

Gotta go, but I'll post some pics of Oblique later. Oh, and Mr. Greenjeans is blocked and wonderful! I love love love it!

I cheated on my yarn!

2008-02-04T14:28:00.000-06:00

Don't worry, I'll get to that. It involves my pile of yarn and my infatuation with a certain pattern called Oblique.

Mr. Greenjeans is done! On Friday, I went off to Michael's for another ball of yarn - something I should have done back when I first switched to that other dye lot - but I won't dwell on that. I found the perfect match and promptly knit the ribbed border. I think my favorite thing about this pattern is that it tells you exactly how to pick up the stitches (2 stitches per 3 rows). I hate seeing "pick up 68 stitches evenly across the front edge, blah, blah" because I always end up tearing my hair out trying to figure out how to actually pick up these stitches evenly. It's great! I also found a button that morning at JoAnn. I finished on Saturday morning but only got to blocking today. I think this one will make me very happy!

Now to the cheating. So I've had this pile of Patons Classic Wool in Natural Mix for a while. I chose my dye color and I knew that this yarn would be perfect for Oblique. I dyed it intentionally for Oblique. I dyed it Friday and it was drying by Friday evening.

I'd finished Mr. Greenjeans. I could have cast on for a teacher blanket. I could have cast on for a washcloth. I could have continued on the Jaywalkers or Ben's Sweater. But noooooooo, I had to cast on for Oblique. I had 6 balls of Patons Classic in Dark Gray Mix staring me in the face - what was I to do? I flinched, that's what.

I totally caved and started Oblique without my pretty new hand dyed yarn. I could almost hear it calling to me from the coat hangers in my bathroom "wait, wait for us...just a few more hours...wait!" But I couldn't wait. I started the left front on Saturday and finished it Sunday night. I briefly thought about knitting this in one piece to the armholes, but quickly abandoned that thought. With right leaning and left leaning lace patterns and shaping and moss stitch and textured lace stitch I thought it best to work one section at a time. It went along very nicely and quickly too. I have a feeling that if I were to leave this for any length of time, I might lose my place and never finish...much like my poor Breezy Cables.

This sweater is right up my alley - feminine lace done in a rustic yarn. I'm using size 7 needles and knitting the medium size so I hope it will end up a little in between the small and medium. I'm sure it will be wonderful no matter which size it ends up being. I'll keep knitting and searching for the perfect pattern for my dyed yarn.

What I did last Friday...

2008-02-04T14:07:00.000-06:00

What’s for dinner, honey? Oh, just some nice purple yarn, dear!

Yes, as Mr. T would say – I’m cooking more yarn.

The Great Sweater’s Worth of Hand-dyed Yarn Experiment took place today in my kitchen. The canning pot came out of basement hibernation (only had one dead spider in it!) and the lovingly handcrafted PVC niddy noddy was put to work immediately. Six balls of Patons Classic Wool in Natural Mix were wound into skeins last night and one more ball this morning. I decided that I might want to make Cardigan for Arwen and if that actually happened, I would need that one more ball.

First, the yarn soaked in my kitchen sink. That was the only vessel large enough for that much yarn.

Then I prepared my dye. I used Pieknits directions for dyeing with Wilton Icing Dyes. I used about 3.5 tsp. of dye based on my 24.5 oz. of yarn. I ended up using all that was left in the bottle. The canning pot is large enough for all the yarn, though it takes a little wrangling to stir it around sufficiently. I tried to stir it often to ensure even color distribution.

I added the vinegar after 10 minutes of simmering (this means lots of steam but NO bubbles!). I was a little uneasy with only one glug of vinegar, so I added 3. Probably about ¾ cup in all. It won’t hurt anything.

The next direction was to let it simmer for 30 minutes until the dye has exhausted. After 10 minutes there wasn’t much change. I stirred thoroughly (I think) every 5 minutes. This color is very interesting. As it cooked, the yarn itself looked more purple, while the water looked blue. After the full 30 minutes though, the color was still pretty strong in the water.

I kept it going for some time further - close to another 30 minutes. The dye still had not completely exhausted, but by this time I was ready to say good enough. By the time the yarn was cool and ready to rinse, it had indeed exhausted all the dye. Yay!

Back to the sink for more rinsing. After two days of drying, here's what I ended up with:

One skein is considerably more purple than the others, but overall, I think they are similar enough to be used in a project together and have it turn out well. Cardigan for Arwen might not be the best choice after all, what with all that stockinette. Oblique would have been perfect, had I been patient, but that's never been my strong suit. There's a cabled cardigan in the Winter Vogue that might just be good - we'll see.

When I look at these pictures, the only thing I have to say is...I gotta get me a swift!

Giddy Biddy?

2008-02-01T11:18:00.000-06:00

No no noooo! Niddy Noddy!

Until a few months ago, I'd never even heard of a niddy noddy, let alone knew what it was supposed to do. Thus, I obviously never would have thought I needed something I didn't know existed.

Recently I've sold several knitting books that I no longer use on eBay and now have a small stash of cash in Paypal waiting for some unsuspecting knitting object to catch my fancy. I was browsing the swifts when I happened upon some niddy noddies. They were very pretty and I even found one for under $15 with shipping. I instantly knew that this could be my alternative to winding my yarn around the overhang of my kitchen island to create skeins for hand-dyeing. But I wanted one now!

Through the magic of Google, I stumbled upon Doctor Dirt's instructions on how to make your own niddy noddy out of PVC pipe. Score! I had to do it! I bought a mini hacksaw at Walmart while L. was at occupational therapy and after dinner , went to Home Depot for the rest of my supplies. 10 feet of 1/2" PVC was only $1.29 so what the heck, I'll have extra. Two T-connectors totaled $.54 and my own contribution to the design - rubber chair leg tips - were $1.98. Whee!

I cut four 6" lengths and one 18" length of the pipe. The mini hacksaw worked great and the stuff cuts super easily. I connected them all to the T-connectors and voila! A little sandpaper to get rid of the printing and I was in business.

It was not difficult for me to figure out how to wind it, but I felt somewhat like an overgrown majorette while winding the yarn. One ball (223 yards) of Patons Classic Merino was on the contraption completely in 2 minutes (I took baton twirling lessons as a kid - muscle memory, baby!). Another couple minutes to tie it off and that was that! So much nicer than winding the yarn around my island!

The little rubber chair leg tips were my little flash of genius. The 7/8" size fit perfectly over the ends of the 1/2" PVC. When I'm ready to remove the yarn, I just remove one tip, slide the yarn off and it will fall off the other ends very easily. No snags, no yarn slipping while you're twirling around like a flag girl, and no difficulty getting it off in the end. Perfect! Another great thing about this PVC version is that it can be completely disassembled if you want or twisted so it will lay flat for storage. Yay!

I wound all six of my balls of Natural Mix last night during the Lost recap show and season premiere. I let my arm rest a few minutes between each because it is a little bit of work to coordinate all your movements just right. And, duh, I had to pay attention to the show?!?!?!?!

I bought another ball this morning just to be safe and wound it while my lunch heated in the microwave. Everything is soaking in the sink right now as I get ready for the Great Sweater's Worth Dye Experiment. Let's just hope it all fits in my canning pot!

Dyes and dye lots...the Good and the Bad

2008-01-31T09:28:00.000-06:00

Aren't they pretty? Each color shown was dyed over Patons Classic Merino in Winter White on the left, and Natural Mix on the right. My second try at the green - this time remembering to add the acid! - was a great success. The colors were (from left to right and all Wilton Icing Dyes) Pink, Delphinium Blue, and Leaf Green. My favorite is the D. Blue over the Natural Mix. The yarn came out subtley variegated with purples and blues.

I don't know if that was just a happy coincidence or if it was because I stirred it without first wiping the pink off my spoon - but I don't think enough of the pink would've been still on the spoon to cause such variation. It's wonderful though and I hope I can replicate it when I do it on a larger - 6 skein - scale. This is the only one I've swatched so far. I think this would make a nice Oblique, but I might make a vest instead. Decisions, decisions.

Ms. Purplejeans, as she is known on Ravelry, is ready for her ribbed edging. I'm disappointed in myself for not trying to match dyelots. I knew that two of my skeins were of a different dye lot - heck, I could even see the difference - but I went ahead. It's pretty obvious. The photo above was taken without the flash and it's harder to tell, but with the flash, it is glaring.

I think I'll pack it up and take it to Michael's tomorrow and try to get another ball to match better. As it is, I don't think I have enough for the edging - at least not of the same dyelot. I'd like to be able to do it as a continuous piece and not have to join a new ball.

I've enjoyed making this sweater so far. The pattern is straightforward and easy to follow and it was super easy to do the cables without a cable needle. I don't think the dyelot issue will deter me from wearing it, but I have a backup plan should I find it too irritating to look at. I have enough of each dyelot leftover to run some overdye tests. If I have to, I'll see if I can't overdye them to be reasonably consistent. It's already so dark though that I don't want to do too much to it. We'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it.

As I ponder the fate of the 6 balls of yarn next to me, I've decided I need a niddy noddy. I'd love a swift, but at the moment, a niddy noddy is of a more pressing need. I usually wind my yarn into skeins over one end of my kitchen island, but that's starting to wear on my nerves. Plus, let's face it, I want to be one of the cool kids and niddy noddies are cool! I have some money floating around in Paypal after my recent sales and could definitely treat myself, however I just found some instructions for making a PVC niddy noddy. This could accomplish several things.

First, it's cheap. Second, it's immediate. Third, it's doggone resourceful....and fourth, the cold weather killed my van's battery yesterday and I need a good excuse to take a short drive to help build up the charge. B. has rounded the corner of his cold so perhaps after he's had his daily Wii fix, we'll go for a little drive.

In the meantime, I'd better quit daydreaming about yarn and get back to work!

Where am I?

2008-01-30T18:20:00.000-06:00

That's how I feel today. I made a little bit of knitting progress yesterday. The first sleeve of Mr. Greenjeans is done and the second one started. The dye experiments were a roaring success. I'll have to add pictures another time because my computer is rebelling against 3 days of no sleep.

I'd hoped to have sleeve #2 done today, but sick children and temperatures approaching absolute zero have kept me mentally and physically away from my knitting.

What do you get when you cross an absent-minded-when-coming-home-from-work husband and a mom who didn't follow up on the contents of a certain 5 year old's backpack at the end of the week? A kid who missed out on his special day being Child of the Week at preschool...yay! On Monday morning when I brought B. into the classroom, the teachers asked if I had his pictures. What pictures? Nothing came home about Child of the Week so how would I know? Turned out that last Friday, when Mr. T was home early from work, he opened B's backpack, took out the contents, and put them in the laundry room - a place where I never place or think to look for schoolwork. The poor kid has been waiting to be child of the week ever since the start of school. It wasn't a total loss, he still gets to be line leader for the week - he just didn't have any photos to talk about yet.

We prepared all the Child of the Week stuff only to wake up on Wednesday (the next day of school for B) to -41 windchills and an air temp of -20. What gives? It was 43 on Monday! The elementary school was 2 hours late and preschool was flat out cancelled. Probably for the best, because B woke up with a raging cold and cough and wouldn't have been able to go to school anyway. Oh well, he'll get to bring his pictures tomorrow.

We were woken up at 2 a.m. Wednesday by L who complained that his ear hurt. Sheesh! What's next? B was coughing when I put L back to bed so I gave him some water. He continued to cough until he threw up. I gave up trying to sleep and started working.

I don't think much will happen in the knitting department today.

Choose Your Own Adventure

2008-01-28T12:00:00.001-06:00

Today I come to you from my humble kitchen, where my Frankenstein-y dye experiments continue. But first, the weekend progress on Mr. Greenjeans.

I finished the body last night. It looks great, yet I'm hopefull that a good blocking will improve the fit. I went with the small size because a) I thought the model looked to be about my size and b) I'm trying to step away from making garments too large or too un-fitted. Also, there is a rather significant dye lot incident at work here, but I have only myself to blame. I knew there was a difference in the colors, but I went ahead anyway because I really wanted to use up the yarn in my stash rather than buy more. I hope it's not too glaring, but if it is, I may attempt a full sweater over-dye with some additional purple. The outcome is uncertain.

On to the dyeing. Remember, last week I bought Wilton Icing Dyes in Pink, Leaf Green, and Delphinium Blue. I thought it best to dye some samples prior to attempting to dye a complete sweater's worth of yarn. I decided to do 3 dye jobs using each of my 3 colors on two different yarns, to see how they look with no doctoring. First, I made 3 mini-skeins each of Patons Classic Merino Wool in Natural Mix and Winter White.

I soaked the skeins in some water with a dab of 2 in 1 shampoo/conditioner. While that soaked, I prepared my dye. I used two loaf pans and a plastic container. I filled them 1/2 full with tepid water. Then I dissolved 1/16 tsp. of each dye in 1 cup hot water, stirring to dissolve completely; then I poured that into the pan. Here's the green dye bath.

I added the rinsed yarn, one of each variety to each container. I let them soak for about 10 minutes, microwaved for 6 minutes at 2 minute intervals, then added a small glug of vinegar, making sure not to pour directly on my yarn. I lined up the pans on my stove and rotated them through the microwave at 2 minute intervals on high so each got a 4-5 minute rest between shots in the 'wave.

The pink exhausted the fastest. The Winter White sample is rather shockingly pink, though we must wait until it's dry to really see what it is. However the Natural Mix sample is a really nice darker rose tone that I think has some real possibilities!

The blue is looking stunning! The photos just don't do it justice. Both came out as shades of periwinkle blue with shots of purple running through them. The Natural Mix sample has a little more variation (naturally!), but both are amazing and exactly what I'd hoped for!

The green looked like it would be wonderful...but I wondered why the heck it wasn't taking up the dye. I nuked it within an inch of it's life, then decided to rinse. All my color ran down the drain and it was then I realized that indeed, I had forgotten to add the vinegar! Yes, vinegar really is needed for color-fastness, as I learned firsthand. That's what I was left with. I'm trying it again right now - with vinegar - and gee whiz, the color is soaking in! Fancy that!

I didn't actually keep track of how long it took me to get to the point of dye exhaustion. The pink was definitely the fastest. The blue took longer and never completely exhausted. The green...well you know about the green, but it's probably going to be much like the blue. Could be because those are stronger colors than the pink or perhaps I used a bit more than I needed. I think I was able to get a good representation of the colors though and now I can better judge what will be best for what project. The green is still stewing, but here's the pink and D.blue.

Moral of the story...Kids, always use your vinegar!

2008-01-25T08:36:00.000-06:00

I so wanted to be able to give you a glowing account of Mr. Greenjeans. I thought I might be nearing the end of the body cable-rib section. It looked really nice. But then I reread the pattern.

I forgot to switch to smaller needles! ARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

I remain determined to do this the right way (remember the Cozy V-Neck saga?) so before I even took a picture of my progress, I pulled the needle out and ripped away. There it is, in all it's spaghetti-like glory.

I would consider myself a process knitter, though I'd be remiss if I said I wasn't anxiously awaiting this particular finished product. I understand the value of and really want another shorter sleeved cardigan. Plus I'm going to get together with my girlfriends on February 9 and thus have another occasion on which I might be able to wear a new garment. Frustration abounds, but I'll get through it.

STASH BUSTING ALERT!!!! I realised I have partial single skeins of 5 different colors of TLC Cotton Plus in my stash. This is quite fortuitous considering my goal of making gads of Mason-Dixon Washcloths to give to teachers at the end of the school year. There's a light lemon yellow, turquoise, lavender, red, and black - enough for at least two washcloths of each color. I made one out of the red yesterday (to help relieve the shock of ripping out so much of Greenjeans) and wow is it ever great! I really really love that yarn!

Photos don't do it justice, neither does the fact that it's not blocked, but it really is lovely. Cotton Plus is 51% cotton, 49% acrylic. It has cable construction, is very soft and has a sheen to it. It's labeled as worsted weight, but I think it might just pass for DK. I'll be swatching with this for some of the garments in Debbie Bliss's Family Knits.

I trekked down to Michael's this morning - I couldn't help myself! Patons Classic Merino was on sale for $4 a ball and I had a coupon! I'm such a sucker. First off, I walked past the $1 section and saw the cutest little bars of Mary Engelbreit-wrapped soap. Score! I grabbed 6. They'll be perfect for tying up inside the washcloths whence gifted.

The color selection of Patons Classic Merino disappointed me. I don't know why - I go there often enough that I know full well what their stock range of colors is. I wanted spring-y and it was not there. So I went with an option I've never considered before.

I'm gonna dye a sweater's worth of yarn! Shoot me now or cheer me on!

I bought 6 skeins of Natural Mix - my favorite - and 3 jars of Wilton icing dyes: Moss Green, Pink, and Delphinium Blue.

My gut tells me to go with the D. Blue with a dash of Pink in hopes of getting a mildly lilac-shaded blue. My gut also tells me I'd better test this out first. I went with the Natural Mix because I'm hoping that it's subtleties will remain through the dyeing process. Tonal variations are so much more interesting than one solid color. I have a gigantic canning pot that roughly resembles a 50 gallon drum - I'm sure that will hold 6 balls of yarn.

As for potential projects, I have a few in mind. The Strawberry Lace Wrap Cardigan from Knitting Classic Style by Veronik Avery is one; the Swoon Cable Cardigan from the April '08 Knit 'n Style is another. It's a little garish in the modeled photo, but would be very nice in something less busy and lighter. Oblique is another highly coveted cardigan and might just be perfect since it's lacy and I'll be using wool.

All right, enough stalling. I gotta get back to work.

It's Wednesday already??

2008-01-23T10:56:00.000-06:00

Good grief, yes, it is. Where does the time go? Right out the window when you have a weekend that includes a day out with friends, a basketball tournament, and a bonus day off from school.

Good news! I finished the One-Row Scarf with minutes to spare before leaving Saturday morning for my day out with my high school buds! I was pretty frantic, cursing Le Slouch and Slouchy Copy Cat Hat all the way, wishing I'd never started those before finishing the scarf. But I did it. I adore the color, it matches my mittens (duh, it's the same yarn!) and it looks very smart with my new coat. Too bad I didn't take a picture with the coat on.

I had a great time on Saturday with my 3 girlfriends. We pretty much spent our afternoon floating from location to location gabbing away until we ended up at a Hopkins High School hockey game. We had all been hockey cheerleaders so we thought it would be fun. It was great fun, but we were repeatedly faced with the sight of kids who were barely born when we graduated in '92. The price of getting older, I guess. We had a great time though. Oh, and I wore my Hourglass Sweater! Love it!

Sunday was an all-day basketball tournament for A. Mr. T and she left quite early and didn't return until 4 p.m. They won 2nd place...yay! During their absence I had time to contemplate how one of my friends said that each Thursday she cleans her entire house. I can't even remember the last time I cleaned the entire house in a day. Guilt descended upon me and I spent 4 hours cleaning my room and our bathroom. Then I made beds and vacuumed the rest of the upstairs and downstairs. Then I couldn't bear the thought of leaving laundry in plain sight so I got to work putting away the folded stuff and folding the other stuff. Not exactly the way I like to spend my weekend, but I figure it will get me off to a good start to hopefully turn over a new leaf in the housekeeping department. Since then I have made beds daily, done some laundry daily, folded it immediately, picked up around the house here and there, and in general, I feel great about it. I hope this feeling lasts!

Knitting is moving right along as well. I completed both Le Slouch and the Slouchy Copy Cat Hat. I am satisfied with the end result of both, with Le Slouch winning out. I really like that Moda Dea Wool n' Silk Blend. Gotta use that more.

I started a new cardigan, Mr. Greenjeans from Knitty. While I would have loved to make it using exactly the same yarn in the photo, I chose the Royal Purple Patons Classic Merino that has been sitting around my house for quite some time. Top-down yokes feel like an eternity to me, but I plugged away and got through it in 2 days and I'm nearly ready for the rib-cable section. I think this is such a cute sweater and I can't wait to have my very own!

However, A. hasn't failed to notice that the Lamb's Pride Bulky I bought a couple months ago for her Felted Clogs has not left the bag from the store. L.'s school has Slipper Day this Friday. I have not added any kind of tread to the bottoms of his clogs. I can't get myself to buy $15 leather soles so I may just break out the puffy paint. Or I'll look for some bits of fabric that could be sewn to the bottoms. Or I'll break down and buy the darn soles.

Spring Fever has to wait...

2008-01-18T08:34:00.000-06:00

...because it's cold!

Josephine, I love you, you're beautiful...but you're only 1" long and it's a** cold outside. My hands need some mittens!

My summery knitting fling had to come to abrupt end yesterday when I panicked knowing I'd be out on Saturday without mittens unless I got cracking. The projected HIGH temperature on Saturday is a balmy -5. Gloves do nothing for me so I set aside Josephine in favor of finishing the Spiral Mittens.

They're cute and warm! Last night when I took the dog out, I could feel air coming through them, but my fingertips didn't turn numb within 30 seconds. I call that a success. Thinsulate, schminsulate! Gloves just don't keep my fingers warm.

This morning I had a crazy idea to start the Slouchy Copy Cat Hat with a skein of hand dye. I don't think I'll have enough yarn, especially since I'm making it a tad larger, but I'll improvise.

I went to JoAnn this morning after dropping B. at preschool. The one thing I needed was a larger Wilton squirty bottle in which to keep my homemade pancake syrup. But, I also had two valid coupons - one 50% off and one 40% off - so I bought two balls of Moda Dea Silk n' Wool in Pewter for Le Slouch (what is it with me wanting a slouchy hat??). I squished it in my hands all the way home.

Now I'm staring at the remaining skein of Lamb's Pride thinking I should try to hammer out another One-Row Scarf for Saturday. Am I nuts? We'll just see...

A Great F.O.! Plus a warning....

2008-01-17T09:14:00.000-06:00

Well, my work day was a bit more than I bargained for yesterday so I was unable to take any knitting breaks (just a couple peeks at Ravelry), but between last night's TV time and the kids' waking up this morning, I'm happy to say that I finished the Lutea Lace-Shoulder Shell!

This top went so darn fast I can hardly stand it. Plus, it's super cute! Plus plus, I'm out 2.5 skeins from my stash! I took the photos before blocking and it fits great! Now it's blocking and I'm certain it will continue to be wonderful. All the measurements worked out perfectly.

I made the 36" size after reading the designer's note that the top was meant to have 0-2" of ease (Thank you, Angela Hahn!). My bust is 36" so I went for it and I'm glad I did. Even though I'm not quite the size I wish I was, I'm retraining myself to not think I'm larger than I am. That's been my downfall - I make patterns too large and the end result just looks stupid. Choosing the right size has been as much a factor in my recent successes as the pattern itself. I may just have to make another one of these. I could really go for one in Violet.

Another picture, just because I'm so happy with it!

And now the warning. What to do when not-so-good yarns turn oh-so-bad.

Two words: Lupus Foundation.

Yes, that is where the Cozy V-Neck with Deep Ribbing is destined. Too many problems to count. First, I thought I'd be clever and use Sensations Angel Hair from my stash. Ok, kids, repeat after me: just because you can get gauge doesn't mean you should. I got gauge, but the fabric is too dense. Did I figure that out? Nooooooo! Heck, I got gauge!

Then I chose the wrong size. I made the 40" size (hey, dummy, the book is called FITTED Knits - not 4" of Ease Knits). I thought the armhole depth was too shallow so (after ripping back) I made the yoke for the next size larger, then decreased back to my size. Then, 7" into the 10" of ribbing, I realized I hadn't gone down a needle size. Determined to do it the "right" way, I ripped back again and redid the ribbing - which by the way is FAR more boring and torturous than miles of stockinette ever could be.

The ribbing is so thick and sturdy I think the sweater could stand on its own and it didn't relax at all with blocking. It constantly wants to ride upwards and then all the extra fabric in the body relaxes into one very attractive bubble around my middle (see photo above) and another one right above my bustline. See that? Yeah...yuck.

There is some good news though. My stash is lightened and though it was made into something I don't like, who's to say there isn't someone out there who would love that sweater? I'll tag it and bag it, and it will go out with the rest of my Lupus donation next week.

I also learned valuable lessons about gauge and size. Not only must you get the gauge, you must be happy with the gauge you get. Know your size and trust in your size. It's always better to make something that fits you NOW, not what you wish you were, or what you think you are in your own weird head, but what you really truly actually are. Everything looks better when it fits.

At that, I will leave you. On the needles now is Josephine, glowing in it's Apricot Shine Sport loveliness. I'm making the 36 1/2" size exactly as written in the mag. I figure Deborah Newton knows what she's doing and I shouldn't presume to mess with it. I swatched with some Patons Classic Merino last night. I have sweater quanities of it in Royal Purple and Dark Grey Mix. My first instincts lean towards Salt Peanuts and the Cabaret Raglan, but I'll probably change my mind.

Who loves a fast knit, baby?

2008-01-16T07:46:00.000-06:00

I do, that's who! FYI, there will be no photos today, just gonna plow through an update.

The Lutea Lace-Shoulder Shell is moving along in grand style. 3 skeins of Cotton Ease will be more than enough. I don't find the stockinette body boring at all, what with the decreases and increases to keep my attention. The only thing tip I'd give about this one is that if you're using cotton or a cotton blend - and let's face it, why wouldn't you? it's a summer top! - measure the total body length with the piece hanging. Mr. T. begrudgingly held mine up for me as I measured. Measuring in this manner helps to compensate for cotton's heaviness and will ensure that the top is the correct length while you're wearing it.

The short rows wake you up again after all that stockinette (short rows are so magical!) and the shoulder lace pattern is very easy (as long as you've found the errata). I love the short row shaping to create the v-neck because now I won't have a pesky gap in the center where the stitches are pulled apart in a typical v-neck. There's also a slip stitch edging along the underarm. Yay for self-finishing! I fully expect to complete this top during short breaks in my work day today.

In other knitting news, the Hourglass Sweater is nearly dry and I'm itching to get it on. No pun intended there, but I do hope that it isn't too itchy. Sweater Soap seems to have softened it up nicely. It's going to be so comfy and so flattering! The shaping worked out perfectly and I can't wait to wear it when I see my high school girlfriends on Saturday. I realized last night though that the color I used - Sapphire Heather - is dangerously close to royal blue...my high school color! What can I say? That color looks darn good on me! At least it's not a cheerleading uniform!

Lastly, the bane of my knitting existance - the Cozy V-neck Pullover - is blocking. Do you remember that one? I made it out of JoAnn Sensations Angel Hair (ugh!) from my stash. Though I got gauge, in actuality, this yarn is too bulky for this sweater, especially in the ribbing. It's a pretty color and has the potential to be a cute sweater, but I think it's going to be too bulky and hot for me. Oh well, worse comes to worse I'll pack it away with the things destined for the Lupus Foundation.

Off to work now. Coffee first.

Summer Knitting in January

2008-01-15T09:31:00.000-06:00

As I sat and knit on the Lutea Lace-Shoulder Shell this morning before everyone woke up, I wondered what I was thinking knitting something for summer in January? I just finished the Hourglass Sweater (it's blocking as I type) and I still have sweater quantities of wool waiting to be knit into things that I want equally as much as the summer stuff. Even still, the answer wasn't hard to find.

First, if I knit summer garments now, I'm more likely to have them finished by the time it's actually warm enough to wear them. It's hard to believe it will happen when I look out at the crystal blue sky and see that it's -6 F, but warm weather will come.

The second reason is that very soon, I need to start my Fluffy Lap Blanket Frenzy. Last fall, Smiley's had Red Heart Symphony for $1.00 a ball. I went nuts and bought the entire $40 minimum of several colors, plus some Red Heart Tweed as the contrast band color. I think I have enough yarn for 10 blankets total in 4 or 5 different colors. I'm giving out blankets and Mason-Dixon Washcloths with soap as end of the year teacher gifts but I haven't yet decided who gets what. I figure I'd better just get knitting and decide later. Remember the blankets and washcloths? Here they are. I think they are the best idea for teacher gifts ever!

The blankets in the photo were gifted to L.'s teachers last year, but the two washcloths are part of the gift stash for this year. All they need is blocking, but I'll wait until I have a few more. I found some forgotten TLC Cotton Plus in my cotton box and I think I'll try a few washcloths out of that. I really like that stuff - very pretty and easy to work with.

I must crack down on work today, but I'm hoping to get enough knitting time during my breaks to reach the 13.5" stopping point for the Lutea Lace Shell. Then I get to do the short rows and get ready for the lace.

Oh yeah, reason #3 for doing summer knitting in January...it's super duper fast! Who couldn't use some instant gratification right about now?

Spring Fever!

2008-01-14T11:18:00.000-06:00

Yep, I got it! Nevermind that it's -8 this morning, spring fever still made itself known yesterday morning after I cleaned my boys' room. Why did it happen then? Who knows, but for some reason it made me want to re-read the Summer 2007 IK. Yeah, I'm a little behind the curve.

I know there's people out there who get the new IK issues with yarn and needles in hand and start 1 or more projects immediately. I'm not one of them. I flag my favorites, drool, look up yarn possibilities online, drool, then sigh. I think I absolutely must finish everything currently on my needles before I can even THINK of starting something new.

Finish schminish! I want the Lutea Lace-Shoulder Shell and the Josephine Top THIS summer, by gravy!

Spring fever actually gave me the urge to SWATCH. My usual practice is to knit as little as I can in order to get a decent approximation of gauge, then say close enough. I've only kept 2 swatches to date, otherwise I rip it out and get started.

I want to make the Josephine top in Knit Picks Shine Sport. I have 6 balls of a tangerine-y orange color. I swatched with some periwinkle Shine Sport that had first tried to be Picovoli, then a swingy crochet tank thingy. It's so chopped up now that I don't think I could use it for a full project, but it's perfect for swatching. I got gauge on size 4's. Look, it's a real swatch!

I used the leftover bit of Cotton Ease from my 3 Mason-Dixon Washcloths and swatched for the Lutea Lace-Shoulder Shell. I got gauge with size 8's and cast on for the 36" size. I'm using the Berry Cotton Ease that tried to be two other tops before this. The fabric may be a little loose, but heck, it's a summertime tank. Let's hope I get lucky.

I recently subscribed to the Knit Science podcast by Miriam Quinn. I really like this one. Miriam is very personable and like my other favorites, it feels like I'm sitting with a friend. Plus she gives a ton of great information, and I LOVE that. Episode 11 - Gauge Your Swatch was a revelation for me. I'm not sure why it took this podcast to really hit me, but Miriam talks about treating your swatch as a project unto itself. This was my inspiration to actually swatch for these two tops. Hopefully I will continue on this new swatching path and have a lot less frustration with fit in my future.

A little update...

2008-01-12T08:59:00.000-06:00

I'm getting ready to go to A.'s basketball tournament, but I have just enough time for a quick update. Yesterday I worked a lot (for the real job) so I didn't get as much knitting time as I'd like, but I still managed to make progress. The sock is continuing down the foot nicely.

And there's my blurry yet still magical gusset. What is it about that little triangle of fabric that gets my adrenaline flowing?

The Hourglass Sweater is moving along like gangbusters. I love bottom-up construction. Just when you're thinking that you can't bear to knit any more, you reach the yoke and it goes faster and faster. Using the 11" circular on the sleeves worked out surprisingly well.

I've completed 9 sets of decreases in the yoke - halfway there! Though I will probaby do a few more after reading what others have done on Ravelry (I luff Ravelry!!). I haven't heard nearly as many sweater growing pains stories from people using Wool of the Andes as there have been from those using other yarns. Let's hope that this turns out as stunning as I hope. I fully expect to finish it tomorrow. I'm almost through a ball of yarn, then I have 1 more full ball and about 1/2 of another. With the circumference getting smaller with every round, I am cautiously optimistic that I will have more than enough yarn, even with a few additional decrease rounds.

The it will be off to blocking, drying, and wearing proudly next Saturday so I can show off my talents to my friends!

I'm looking forward to A.'s basketball games at 11:30 and 3. I'd love to bring the sock, but with the two boys, the only time I'd touch a needle is if my hand brushed past it while digging for a snack in my purse. I'll be fine waiting until football this evening for my knitting time. I'll probably just keep blasting through the Hourglass Sweater. I want to finish the thing, plus, if I need more yarn, I'd like to know that as soon as humanly possible. Perhaps I'll work on the sock for a quarter of the football game as a diversion, but it will still be there, no matter what, so I won't worry about it.

Ok, enough of the chit chat - time to shower up and warm up my lungs to cheer for my girl's team! Mr. T. is coaching as well...that should be interesting!

All About Socks!

2008-01-10T09:58:00.000-06:00

I love working from home! When I'm stuck on the phone/computer for 2 hours, I can do something with my hands without getting funny looks!

That was yesterday. Webex training on a new database system. Park the kid in front of the Wii, put the cell phone on speaker, and watch the trainer do her stuff on my computer screen. Perfect mindless knitting time. I chose the second sleeve to my Hourglass Sweater. 37 rounds sure do fly when you're having big fun learning iMIS! Here's the sleeve by the end of the training:

After that, my poor little eyes needed a break from the computer screen. On to the sock.

That's how far I got yesterday. Precisely where I had been when I decided to rip it out the day before. This sock really moves! I think it's a combination of the easy pattern and the patterned yarn. With the pattern being only 2 rows of knit stitches - even though everyone's results are stunning - I still consider this a plain pattern. If I was knitting these in a solid color yarn, I'd be bored to tears and I suspect it would feel like it was taking forever.

That's why I love these patterned yarns! If I don't have an obvious pattern repeat to gauge my progress, I like to use the yarn as my progress meter. I'll say to myself, "I'll knit until the next blue stripe" and before I know it, I'm there. I do the same thing if there is a more complex pattern. That's why I liked the Twinkle Toes socks by Cookie A. and why I didn't get bored making them with a solid yarn. Go once through the chart, you've got another inch! It was great!

I've thought about toe up socks. I've knit toe up socks three times. Duh, Twinkle Toes! Also, I used Ann Budd's On Your Toes basic toe up sock pattern from IK Summer 07.

I have no issues with the pattern. I made these with Patons Decor in First Spring and I love the way they turned out. They look great and the pattern worked perfectly. However, I don't really care for the short row toe or the short row heel. Perhaps they needed to be a little longer for the heel to be comfier, but I like them to be snug. The last thing I need is another pair of socks that end up looking like a flour sack on my foot.

I made the Coriolis Socks by Cat Bordhi and those are nice. I liked the construction of these very much. It was like magic AND they have a heel flap! These were the first socks I ever completely finished and are to date my only finished pair made out of sock yarn. I adore these socks and wear them as fast as I can wash them.

You know what? I really enjoy making socks from top to toe. And I enjoy wearing socks that are constructed that way. I tried toe up socks in order to spare myself the torture that is Kitchener stitch, but even that doesn't scare me anymore now that Sandi Wiseheart has graciously shown us how to graft on the needles AND I have Ann Budd's great illustrations in Getting Started Knitting Socks. I love the feel of a heel flap sock and I can't describe the giddyness I feel as I form a gusset. There's just something about the whole heel area of a top down sock that I find thrilling to knit.

I can't tell you if my sock knitting will continue - I change my knitting moods so often, but I have a goal to make enough socks this year to have them for every day of the week. I'd like to complete this goal by October so I'm ready for the cold. They really are fun!

Gauge....Darn You All to Heck!

2008-01-09T06:50:00.000-06:00

That was a quote from Alex in Madagascar. It is a mere hint to the wrath I feel towards gauge. Gauge and my inability to trust my own gut.

How fitting that right now (totally by coincidence) I'm re-listening to Stash and Burn Episode 28: Second Chance and as I typed the title, Nicole said "I have gauge issues with socks." I feel your pain.

Jaywalkers. Dammit!

I shouldn't blame the pattern. It's really all me. The worst part is I was right all along.

Remember how I said that I was concerned that knitting with size 1's would be too tight? Remember how I went out and bought size 2 dpns specifically for these socks and even started them with the size 2 dpns? Remember how I said that I know I knit tight and often have to go up a needle size? I'd even swatched with the size 1 dpns and found that I got 9 sts/inch in stockinette - which is clearly too small for this pattern.

I was knitting along happily with my 2's for about 3". I tried it on and thought "no way, this is way too big." It really didn't cling to my leg, more like skimmed. So I vaguely tried to measure my sock to recheck the gauge and even though I knew it was ok, I switched to size 1's. I thought it looked good after the switch because the baggy look had left and it was all nice and even. My hands were getting sore but I kept on going.

As I neared the end of the leg, I decided to give the fabric a tug. The entire size 1 area had very little give and I started to get worried. I tried to pull it on my leg. Though I did get it on, it was rather a contortionist act and I was terrified I wouldn't get it off again. I did get it off and like an IDIOT, rather than frogging back right away like I should have, I forged ahead, switching to size 2's, thinking that I might be able to save them that way.

R
emember how I said I wanted to turn the heel by the end of the day? I clung to that hope with an iron grip.

I knit the heel flap. I turned the heel. I even knit a few rounds of the gussets. I figured that would be a good time to try it on again and see if the switch to the larger needle loosened things up enough to still salvage the sock. Uhhhhh.....no.

It was still a wrestling match to get it on and then I had the sensation that my circulation would be cut off. To add insult to injury, I took out the tape measure and measured my gauge over pattern and I was right on with the size 2's to begin with.

Through my years of sewing, quilting, knitting and crocheting, I've tried almost every shortcut in the book. Usually before actually trying something the right way. For example, the first time I had to sew a zipper in a garment, I thought "pin it, baste it, then sew it? Pish posh, I can do it without the basting and pinning; how hard can it be? After ripping it out and trying other "short cuts", probably 4 times, I did it the way you're supposed to and it was perfect. There have been many other similar instances where I have been humbled into abandoning "my way" for the "right way". This was one of them.

I frogged back to the original size 2 area of the leg of the sock. Now I'm stuck with a pile of variegated spaghetti. The sock still holds it's charm for me, but I have to say that this incident turned me off just enough to pick up the second sleeve of the Hourglass Sweater. Plus, in a couple weeks I'm getting together with 4 high school friends and we're going to have a portrait session! Sounds kind of corny, but it will be really great, I think! We've been told that solid colors are best so I'm reinvigorated to get this sweater done. Sapphire Heather would be beautiful in a portrait. Now I'll shift my hopes toward having enough yarn on hand to finish it.

The sock rides again

2008-01-08T09:55:00.000-06:00

I thought the Hourglass Sweater would hold my attention enough both in it's quick-knitability and because there's an occasion in a couple weeks at which I'd like to wear it, but the Jaywalkers are mesmorizing! I knit a little more on them before the kids woke up and I'll do some more while watching TV tonight.

I think I love them so much because you have to do so little work to make the chevron pattern appear. My first chevron attempt was on size 0's two years ago. After 4 hours of knitting, I'd only gone about 2 inches. I was decreasing and increasing and yarn-overing constantly and I'd lose my place easily. I wondered how the heck anybody could get addicted to sock knitting?

I've been trying very hard to ease up on my death grip on the needles (probably why I didn't actually have to go up a needle size to get the right gauge) so working at this fine gauge has actually been quite pleasant. I'm even thinking about how great it would be to finish these quickly so I could go on to a pair made out of worsted weight yarn!

Ann Budd's Getting Started Knitting Socks has really inspired me. She explains everything so well and the explanation of the sock percentages is eye opening. I'm even excited about doing the plain basic socks. I'd like to use up some odd ball worsted bits to make some thicker socks.

(insert lightbulb flash as I experience boredom with work in tandem with an intense desire to dye some yarn - Break Time!)

When I write my posts, sometimes I leave it up and add to it as I go through my day. After writing the last paragraph, I had a flash of inspiration to overdye one of the gray Wool-Ease skeins I purchased yesterday. I'd intended to use them with some leftover sock yarn to create some kind of scarf for spring, but after getting the Budd book, I really only want to use it for socks.

So I'm Frankensteining what I hope will be a blue-ish purple. I know the color won't take extraordinarily well since this yarn is 75% acrylic, but it should do something. Plus, I just like the process. I used royal blue and violet Wilton icing dyes and I'm trying to drip in blue, red and green food color from time to time. We'll see what comes out!

What I really like about dyeing Wool Ease is that because of the acrylic content, I get subtle semi-solids without even trying. I also like to tie my skeins rather tightly in order to add to the depth of color and variegation.

This might just be the year I totally and completely embrace sock knitting!

Back to the grind...

2008-01-07T21:26:00.000-06:00

...but not without getting a fair amount of knitting done. Ever since Christmas I've been all over the idea of instant gratification knitting. After devoting so much time to that infernal blanket, it's hard to look at a large project.

I made 2 more Mason-Dixon Washcloth Reloadeds - that makes 3 washcloths out of one ball of Cotton-Ease! I think there's enough left of each color to combine them into one more washcloth. I'm gonna go for it. This totally fits my definition of a perfect patter - it's beautiful, useful, short, quick, challenging enough to hold interest yet not intimidating and best of all - it's correct! Man, I hate when patterns are wrong. Aren't there people who get paid the big bucks to make sure patterns are right? That's a story for another day.

I finished one Cozy House Sock from 101 One Skein Wonders out of my leftover Shetland Chunky in Rich Teal from the Drops sweater. It's wonderful! I have yet to cast on for the second sock, but it won't be long.

What else...oh - and I got back to my Hourglass Sweater. I'm using Wool of the Andes in Sapphire Heather and it's gorgeous! I finished and attached the first sleeve and started the second sleeve this morning. I made it through the hem and I'm ready to start the shaping.

This whole knitted-in hem thing is a wonderful trick, but somehow it was a real problem until the second sleeve. Both on the body hem and on the first sleeve, I could not for the life of me figure out which loop to pick up unless I went to the wrong side, placed loops onto a fine dpn, then held that needle in my left hand and knit off both needles. With the second sleeve, however, everything clicked and I picked up the stitches from the cast on row as I went and it went as smooth as silk. Yay me!

I also finished the Spiral Rib Tweed Hat and one mitten from IK Holiday 2006. I'm a bit disappointed because the pattern said I should only need one skein of Lamb's Pride Worsted. I made it through the cuff and about 1" of spiral rib and then I ran out of yarn. The set is really pretty (though my husband laughed at me when he saw me wearing the hat) and I really want those mittens, but they will have to wait until Thursday when I can get over to Silver Creek Cabin and buy more yarn.

AND, I started a pair of Jaywalkers. I think I'm the last sock knitter on the planet to make these, but I finally jumped on board and began them today. I went out this morning to JoAnn specifically to get size 2 dpns (about the only size needle I didn't have) for these socks. I figured that since I knit tight, size 2's - rather than the recommended size 1's - would be perfect. Well, 3" into the leg I tried them on and they just skimmed my leg. I prefer a more snug sock and they did look off on gauge anyway. I didn't have the heart to frog them so I just switched to size 1's on a knit row and kept going. I'm 5" down the leg and hopeful that I will be turning a heel at some point tomorrow.

I bought some gray Wool-Ease today to futz around with a scarf design I've had in my head but it wasn't turning out as I'd hoped so I'll probably used the yarn for socks. I bought Ann Budd's new sock book "Getting Started Knitting Socks" today as well. I set out this morning looking for "I Can't Believe I'm Kntiting Socks", found it, but after flipping through it, discovered it really wasn't what I was looking for.

I hung around in front of JoAnn's horribly disorganized book display until I saw the Budd book. It's hardcover (yippee!) yet it still lays flat with minimal contortions on my part. I read it while I knited the Jaywalkers. This book is fantastic! I'm not totally new to knitting socks (I've knit 4 measly pairs) and I have Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks, which I thought would probably be the only sock book I needed, but I was soooo wrong! There were things I'd often seen in patterns or in Charlene's book and I'd think "ok, how exactly am I supposed to do that?" or "why the heck would I do that?"

Ann's book goes into detail, but the explanations are clear and concise. She gives her preferences and tips throughout the book as well, which I find very insightful. This book shows all the different ways you could pick up the stitches along the side of the heel. It has the best Kitchener illustrations I've ever found. I think I might actually be able to do it. It's a great book. If you're really super experiences at sock knitting, you probably won't need it, but I can see myself knitting the basic patterns and the other more embellished patterns for years to come.

Onward, young stash buster!

2008-01-04T11:12:00.000-06:00

Ok, maybe not so young, but I am in a stash busting mood! After completing a few large projects, I always like to throw in several small projects both for their stash busting benefits and the instant gratificaton that comes from a couple days of knitting.

I made the Super Yak Scarf from 101 One Skein Wonders with some leftover Shetland Chunky, but when I ran out of yarn to finish the Cabled Cap, I frogged it. I didn't like it anyway and I adore the hat, so it was a good trade off. I also started the Sock it to Me scarf from Designer 101 One Skein Wonders with the Opal Rodeo leftover from my Coriolis socks. I'll probably just wait until there's more leftover sock yarn lying around and make it a mish mosh of colors.

I still have some Violet and Slate Cotton-Ease so I'm going to try to make a couple more Mason-Dixon Washcloths since I love those so much and don't want that yarn to go to waste. I'd also like to get through all my UFO's. I have an Hourglass Sweater in the works as well as a new cabled sweater for Ben. I love to see yarn get used up. I feel productive and I feel like I'm doing something beneficial for my household - reducing clutter. (psst, then I get to buy new yarn too!)

Now, I'll share the story of the epic hat for my daugther. She got a new winter coat this year - I'm sure many of you have seen it. It's from Kohl's and the brand is Arctic Zone, I think? Black, with skinny white and green stripes along the arm, across the chest, and down another arm.

A. wanted a hat to match and since I love knitting for her, I was happy to dig out my Holiday 2006 edition of KnitSimple. That magazine had several hat patterns, in varying gauges, sized for preemies, babies, toddlers, children, women and men. I'd made her a 2x2 ribbed striped hat last year in the child size and she loved it. In fact she wore it so much that she eventually lost it.

I set out to make a 2x2 rib hat in black, white, green and blue stripes. The first attempt had to be frogged because I neglected to account for a brim length when I measured the total length and the hat ended up being about the right size for a Cabbage Patch Kid. The second attempt had all the right measurements for a woman's hat, but still ended up looking like it might fit a 2 year old. See the hat on the left.

Even though A. specifically said she wanted the 2x2 ribbed striped beanie hat, I made the executive decision to make her a striped Cap Karma. I thought the cabled pattern would be warmer than the 2x2 rib. I followed the basic Cap Karma pattern and then went with Jared's decrease in pattern instructions. I love it and it looks so cute on A!

Isn't she darling? What's that? Did she like it, you ask?

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

I could tell she tried to be tactful about it, but she said she really liked the other one (2x2 style) better and really didn't like the cables "or whatever" on this hat. CRAP! I should have known. Departing from what's expected or wanted really hasn't ever worked out for me. Oh well, now we'll have another hat to throw in the bench as a standby.

On another note, I started something that I've wanted for myself for over a year now. I started the Spiral Hat and Mittens Twill Set by Sharon Shoji from the IK Holiday 2006 issue.

I always have a little anxiety when I go to a yarn shop. I'm a thrifty person who rarely buys yarn from a yarn shop for my projects. Typically I'm going to Michael's or Jo-Ann and I've never bought a sweater's worth of yarn from a yarn shop. However since I knew that this would cost me less than $15 bucks, I went ahead and bought Lamb's Pride Worsted in Clematis and Wildfoote Luxury Sock Yarn in Elderberry. The photos don't do the color justice. It's beautiful!

I know I'll finish the hat today. It's a fast knit and the twill pattern is one of my favorites. I can't stop touching this hat and squishing it between my fingers! The sock yarn gives it just the right punch of color interest and I hope it finishes up and wears as well as I hope it will!

On that note, I think I'll get back to my knitting. I also need to get back to work, but this hat is addictive, as is any quick project. I keep giving my self a cut-off point when I'll stop and do laundry or work or something, but it's so tempting to keep going!

The Crisis and the New Year's Resolution

2008-01-03T09:15:00.001-06:00

Wow! It's been nearly a month! By the looks of thing, nobody has noticed, but it feels like a long time so I thought I'd get back in the blogging game.

I'd made a conscious decision this year not to knit gifts for anyone and though it made me a little sad, it did mean I had plenty of knitting time to myself. I started the Tree Jacket, Hourglass Sweater and I continued on Ben's Cabled Sweater. I also finished a lot in December:

Patons Cabled Cap

Bernat Leaf Pullover

4 Mason-Dixon Washcloths (or Washcloth Reloaded, however you happen to refer to it)

Drops 79-24 Pullover

The Yarn Harlot's One Row Scarf

The Mason-Dixon Washcloths were a last minute gift idea for my sister and 3 sister-in-laws. A day before the Christmas celebration with my dad and step-mom, I decided that I really needed to make something for someone. My female immediate relatives seemed like the only realistic recipients (there are only 4 of them). I had a couple skeins of Cotton-Ease and went to work on the Washcloth Reloaded from Mason-Dixon Knitting. I sent Tony out to Bath and Body works for 4 bars of smelly soap. I made one washcloth that day and got halfway through the other. I finished the second one in the morning. I pinned them, spritzed them, and they were dry in a few hours. They turned out marvelous! I finished another one that afternoon so I could give it to another SIL the next day. I made the last one on Christmas Eve, blocked it, and gifted it that night. I think this might just be my second favorite knitted gift (Fluffy Lap Blanket being #1). I fully intend to make several of these and save them for end of the year teacher gifts - to the teachers who don't get blankets. The pattern is easy and how can it get any better than a pattern that decreases into nothingness?

Oh my GOSH, how could I forget the most amazing finished object of December!!!!!!

(drum roll, please...)

THE OMBRE ACRYLIC BLANKET!!!!!!!

I can't put into words just how wonderful it is to have that beast out of my house! It turned out beautiful! I could have made it longer, but I was so tired of it that I could not bear the thought of continuing. Plus, I ran out of yarn. My brother and his girlfriend made it into town the weekend before Christmas and we had them out for dinner and presents. He loved it and she loved it too. Here it is, modeled beautifully by Alicia and Yocasta.

On to the crisis I alluded to in the title of this post. Yesterday my Christmas present to myself (using gift money) arrived from the evil Crafter's Choice book club. They don't have the best selection of knitting books but they had an irresistable $9.99 for any book sale and I happened to find five (5!) books that I really felt I couldn't live without. I got Family Knits by Debbie Bliss, Modern Classics by Louisa Harding, Bag Style by Pam Allen and Ann Budd, The Best of Interweave Knits, and Knitting Classic Style by Veronik Avery.

As I entered these books into my Ravelry library (and as I contemplate the purchase of another sock book), I realized that I have a crisis on my hands. I have a lot of books. It might be getting a little out of control. This led to a New Year's resolution: in 2008, I resolve to knit something from every book in my library. Even if it's something little. I have knit something from nearly everything I own, but there are several books that have sat collecting dust on my shelf. It's time to change that or get them out of here.

I used to be a pack rat, but now clutter bugs me. If I'm not making use of something, I'd rather not keep it. It was quite a leap for me to buy the Debbie Bliss book - also for the Veronik Avery and Louisa Harding books - because I've always been a little afraid of those books/designers. In Knitting Daily yesterday, Sandi said something about fearless knitting. I've decided that that is the perfect motto for me for 2008. Anything from Debbie or Veronik would qualify as bravery for me. I love texture and cables and small gauges, but I've always shied away from it. I will change that.

Heck, I spent the money on all these books, thus there was something that appealed to me enough to want them, so why not make it?

The air is clear and so is my conscience!

2007-12-11T14:40:00.000-06:00

Yarn conscience, that is. I don't have a huge stash, and I did already do one major stash airing, however the remaining yarn was grating on my mind. Today was the day and I bagged up or tossed most of what I didn't get rid of the first time around.

The spur in my backside is that my mom, my brother, Jamie, and his girlfriend, Yocasta, are coming to my house on Saturday to celebrate Christmas. He lives in the Bronx, New York, and he's only able to come into town for a few days. I'm trying the strategy of one area of the house at a time - and I started today with the formal living room and dining room.

To call it a formal living room is kind of a joke. There is a sofa, but I'm the only one who sits on it. My 100 year old Mason & Hamlin upright is there too. And my desk, or, the Armpit of the Room. I have a jar of buttons, a fork that a friend bent into a bug, a mug with pens, piles of work papers, a printer/fax machine, laptop, 4 boxes of contacts, and several mini DV tapes. Oh, and shhh, don't tell, but I also have Christmas gifts stashed inside the pullout front drawer. It's kind of a nightmare, but I did already clean it so that wasn't my focus.

The starting point was the corner between the piano and the wall. I have plastic tower of drawers that hold medical records, insurance documents, recipes and yarn. Next to the tower is a small cabinet that holds my piano music. On top of that is a large basket full of all my wool balls and scraps. On the floor around everything were boxes of phots (another project I haven't finished).

Once I knew what I was up against, I went out and got 3 of these cool new plastic containers that are designed to fit on wire shelving. I labeled one Feltable Wool, another Cotton and Cotton Blends, and Wool Blends. I have a plastic box under my bed already for the acrylic that I might still have a use for.

I don't know if anyone even takes yarn donations (of yarn that isn't brand new, I mean) around here, but I bagged up the Fun Fur, Lion Suede, Red Heart, Homespun, Bernat Babysoft, and some unlabeled novelty yarn put out by Walmart a couple years ago. Into the garbage bag went the remains of Mariah (a story for another day), the body parts of a bunny that was never finished, bits of projects that were started, then abandoned, and some really ugly Red Heart.

I also tossed loads of papers. Yay for me!

Now my plastic tower has room for all the music that didn't fit in the little cabinet and there is still room for some afghan squares that I crochet from time to time. The basket is empty and the whole corner looks neat and organized. I can even see the floor! The living room is totally done and I nearly got through the dining room.

My bins worked great! Luckily my stash isn't huge so it all fit just fine and now they're resting comfortably on my closet shelf. The bins are clear so I can quickly see what I have and now my memory is refreshed about what I actually have.

It's a good thing.

Seriously, what is SO wrong with buying me yarn?

2007-12-10T12:24:00.000-06:00

or other various knitting things? Somebody has to explain this to me. They ask for ideas, they get them...shouldn't that be a hint that what I've asked for is stuff I'd really want?

I have this friend - she'll know who she is :) - who's husband bought her a quilting machine. My husband said I quilted too much. Her husband bought her the Knit Picks Options needle set. Mine says I have too many already. I'm sure her husband would buy her yarn if she told him exactly what she wanted. Mine would rather burn my stash.

Nevermind that I want to make Emerald and have been leaving the pattern lying around the house with the yarn highlighted. I have a sticky note up smack dab in front of my laptop with all my yarn options for that sweater, along with prices and where to get them. Nevermind that I really love Silver Creek Cabin yarn shop. Nevermind that I spend nearly every minute of my leisure time knitting. Hubbo buying me yarn or anything remotely related to knitting is a pipe dream of Crystal Cathedral proportions.

So I went to the next best possible provider of knitting goods...Mom. She was the same person I went to when I wanted a walking foot and bias binder for my sewing machine, so I had high hopes. My list included the Options needle set, 3 yarn choices for Emerald (specifying color and quantity), and a few books that I would love but might not buy myself. And I did all this with plenty of time for online ordering. I also asked for a gift card to Amazing Threads, since Silver Creek Cabin is too far for her.

Did she listen to me? Nope. She called Tony and asked if there were any ideas for me other than knitting, that she really wanted to get me something that I would love. What? Are you freaking kidding me? She's seen how much I knit and how much I love it - ever since I first started as a kid. I told her I could perhaps use a nice wool coat, but in the back of my mind I'm thinking "a wool coat is not going to thrill me nearly as much as 10 balls of Cadena in Peat or 12 balls of Sheep Shop Sheep 2 in G17 or F029."

When Mom told me a day later that she really wanted to buy me a coat but was worried she'd buy the wrong thing, I sent her what I hope was a convincing email saying that the yarns/books/needles I'd put in my original gift idea list REALLY were great ideas for me and I'd be thrilled with any one of them. A coat would be nice - I have been wearing the same wool coat since about 1994 (egad!) - but I don't work outside the home anymore. A nice coat would be worn only a few times each winter for church and holidays. Knitting stuff would be far more useful and fun for me.

I don't see why, when it's something I love to do and really take pleasure in, whether it's making things for myself or others, there should be any problem in buying me gifts that would add to my enjoyment? Tony gets hunting things for his birthday and Christmas. Last year he asked for and received enough Cabela's gift cards to buy a new bow. Yet when I put down yarn shops as gift card ideas, people ask where else I might want to shop.

I gotta work on these people through the next year. Friday I'll see if my mom took any of my ideas to heart or not. I know she didn't order me anything from Knit Picks though.

Oh, I should give a mention to the one person who listens to my ideas and actually goes with them...my twin brother, Jamie. I gave him some knitting books as ideas, so cross your fingers, folks. I'm optimistic because this is the guy who actually gave me a book about canning and preserving when I asked for one. Go figure, actually giving a person what they want? No way! Thanks, Jame!

I have to give a closing statement, since I'm sure all this has made me sound very ungrateful. Generally, everyone does a great job at buying me gifts. My husband always knows what he's getting me far in advance and has a knack for finding just the right gift. I do love presents, but in all honesty, I enjoy giving gifts so much that I wouldn't mind if I myself received nothing. I love shopping for people and I love getting them something I know they'll love because IT WAS ON THEIR LIST! How hard is that?

So many emotions...darn it!

2007-12-07T19:26:00.000-06:00

I know I could, but I haven't the nerve to curse on the internet yet :)

Anyway, the emotions. Started out feeling rather good. I had both sleeves for the Drops 79-24 going like gangbusters on one circular needle...and then it hit me.

I was going to run out of yarn.

I knit like crazy in the wee hours of the a.m. in order to have a good idea of just how much more I'd need before I had to get Alicia and Lucas out the door. I would drive down to Michael's after depositing Ben at preschool and buy 2 more balls of yarn, just to be safe. I was pretty psyched about going to Michael's anyway because they had Patons Classic Wool and Shetland Chunky on sale 2 for $7. I can't pass that up, though I think I bought the Shetland Chunky for 79-24 on sale 2 for $6).

Last time I was there they had a huge endcap display of some great shades of Shetland Chunky and I was prepared with my dye lot, my sample bit of yarn, and a basket. What did I find it its place? Berella 4! A yarn I've never EVER before seen in a retail store! FISH PASTE!!!!! I broke out in to a cold sweat as I headed for the back wall. No Rich Teal Shetland Chunky. TARTAR SAUCE!!!!

I did buy 6 balls of Dark Grey Mix Patons Classic Wool. I held a ball and squished it in my hands the whole way home - kinda like a stress ball, come to think of it. I have a shopping cart ready to roll at Knitting Warehouse, but I also found a Raveler with 2 balls of the exact shade and nearly the exact dye lot in her stash. They aren't listed as for sale, but I sent her a messaged asking if she'd be willing to sell them. Really, what could she make with 2 balls anyway? Ok, not the best question, but you know what I mean.

In the meantime, the sweater pieces are in my basket. Waiting. The Hourglass Pullover that I started on a whim is keeping ol' 79-24 company. I flew through the body but now I'm stubbornly waiting for my 8" Balene II circular needles, sizes 5 and 7, to arrive from some eBay seller. I'm warily confident that I can make them work - otherwise I wouldn't have ordered them - but I'm itching to get going on those sleeves. WoTA in Sapphire Heather is GORGEOUS! I wish I'd started this earlier so I could wear it out to dinner tomorrow night.

It's hard to believe, but in 13 years of marriage, Tony and I have never been to any friends' home (together) for dinner with other adults and no children. We've been invited to his boss's place for dinner with two other couples. I'm strangely nervous! For my entire adult life, I've hung out with people older than me and have been used to being the youngest person around. Now I'm 34 and I'll be the oldest female there besides our hostess AND I'll be the only female there with children. Dang, I hate getting old! But it will be nice and I just hope I don't embarrass anyone with my wont of social skills.

Oh, and the thing that has me really excited at the moment......(drum roll on desk).......I finally figured out how to post badges on my blog! Yay, me! I'm probably the last blogger on early to "get it", but I'd like to thank Fantasyknits - at least I'm pretty sure it was on her blog that I found out about ImageShack - but anyway, I found ImageShack, a free image hosting site. Now I don't have to mooch server space from my idols until they realize it and disable my images! Yay! Another thing I like about Fantasyknits is that we have the same birthday! Yay, us!

I suppose that's enough babbling for one day. I'm going to try to get some knitting done...just have to figure out what to knit that will distract me from the Giant Ombre Acrylic Monster that lives at the foot of my seat on the sofa. It's taking on a life of it's own.

Good news though. The brother will be here next weekend and we're having a mini Christmas at my house on Saturday, December 15 - or as I'm now calling it Sic-the-Giant-Ombre-Acrylic-Monster-on-my-brother-and-don't-let-him-leave-without-it-Day.

Thanksgiving...and a fit of consience.

2007-11-26T16:24:00.000-06:00

Hey, how was your Thanksgiving? Once I got done with work-work, then house-work, and got down to the business of cooking-work, I had a great time. My mom came over and that was it. The turkey was perfect (thank you, Alton Brown!) and everything else was exceptionally good. See?

In a post-meal, Arbor Mist/Shiraz haze, I announced that I would not knit on anything else until I finished my brother's Ombre Acrylic Blanket from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I was really good and I'm soooooo close! However....

Progress has definitely quickened since I began using my KnitPicks needles and the 47" cable. I'm about 3" into the final band of color. I'm ridiculously close to finishing, yet yesterday afternoon, my wrists got sore.

So following the Vikings heroic victory over the Giants (Skol Vikings!), I scrapped my vow, looked to the right and saw Drops 79-24...the front is done, but the back was calling my name.

That's ok, I justified. It's such a fast moving knit, I said to myself "I'll just knit the back until this ball of yarn is done." True to my word, I stopped on the back when I finished the ball.

Then I looked to my left. There lay Drops 103-1, with just a teensy weensy bit of its ball of yarn left. Well, that would not do, so I had to knit until that ball of yarn was done. All right, maybe I did just a little bit more. Isn't the brown tweed purdy!

Now I'm at a crossroads, but I think the final decision is clear. I absolutely have got to get this monkey....er....blanket off my back. Just think of what a relief it would be to get this thing done with and shipped off to NY? This blanket is like knitting shackles right now. I must free myself from its grasp. Wanna see my dilemma?

Now, if I were truly conscientious, I might remove the tempting projects entirely. What you can't see in the shot is that a little below the frame is also a pile of books and magazines including both One Skein Wonder books, the last two IKs, Creative Knitting, and Knit n Style. As a side note, those last two magazines are ones I usually cringe at but to my surprise, Creative Knitting has several attractive projects and Knit n Style had ok projects and decent articles. I mostly bought them because I felt I deserved something for working 40 hours in 3.5 days.

So tonight I'm faced with the problem of deciding to which project I'll devote my time. Hmmmm. It's gonna be tough.

What do you do when your VPN kicks you in the head when you're trying to meet a deadline?

2007-11-21T14:31:00.000-06:00

I don't know about you, but I.......

....cast on for Drops 103-1! Yaaaaaaaayyyyyy!

I am extremely frustrated right now, which directly translates into 1 1/2 more inches than what's shown in the photo. I really should have known better than to publicize to my professional colleagues my specific intentions regarding what exact time I wanted to send out my meeting agendas today. I've been doing this long enough to know that whenever I do such a thing, my computer decides to poop all over me and I'm left in a caffeinated mix of panic and heart failure.

Casting on was about all I could do to keep from beating my head with my stapler. What also helped goad me on was that I'd had a little Ravelry-based correspondence on the ability of Patons Shetland Chunky Tweeds to successfully translate into the Drops 103-1, plus the fact that I have a sweater's worth of the stuff in Earthy Brown, and that I had a ball, the needles, and the pattern sitting right next to me - already swatched, just calling my name.

It's so cute! I have 6 balls of the yarn, but I know I'm pretty darn sure I'll need more since I'm making size L in the 17 sts/inch gauge. Luckily I think my gauge is a little on the tighter side so it all should work out just fine.

In the meantime, while I would love to keep on knitting away into a blissful yarn stupor, I'd like us all to say a little prayer to the IT gods....WHOA! It worked! VPN is back! Gotta split and get my work done!

Oh yeah...Happy Thanksgiving!

Sweater Issues Divert Me from Tooth Pain

2007-11-16T06:12:00.000-06:00

I'm trying to psych myself up for Root Canal, Part Deux, but mostly I just want it over with. Yesterday I finally had a day with no pain and very little sensitivity...and then the temporary filling came out! So I'm on a hunger strike until it's all over. I'll divert my mind to sweaters~~~~~(picture a wavy movie scene fading into sweater world!)

I put on my wonderful Cabled Yoke Pullover yesterday:

(remember?)

I love this sweater, even more so since I discovered Sweater Soap. I always thought wool was too itchy for me. Well, I do still have sensitive skin, but this stuff peforms miracles - the sweater is as soft as a cloud. Even my sweater-phobic daughter melted when she touched my arm yesterday. However there is a problem.

Note the attractive boat neck in the photo above? Would have been nice if it stayed that way, but after blocking and one washing, the neck is now in full Flashdance mode. It's ok if I wear a t-shirt underneath, but it feels like it's going to fall off. It's hitting right at the edge of my knobby shoulder bones. I'm going in.

I've been over-thinking this for about a week and last night just went ahead and picked out my bind off (not very fun when you used size 4's!). I restarted the 1x1 ribbing, replaced markers at where I think a raglan seamline would be and at the center front and back. This probably isn't the best method of decreasing in 1x1 rib since it's a little obvious. I might still rip back and do it again with evenly spaced decreases, but I'll see how much it bothers me when I try it on again. I'd also like to add some short rows to the back neck so I can take less than a 10 minute super inspection to figure out which side is the front.

I just want to get it right since I really do love this, my first 100% wool sweater, and if the weather man is right, the snow that's been teasing us for days is going to fall in full force next week.

Now I must decide which sweater would make me feel best while my tooth is repaired...hmmmm. Decisions, decisions.

Short-Sleeve Cardigan Pix and Thoughts

2007-11-14T10:37:00.001-06:00

You ever have something that you really need to do - like write a term paper or finish your brother's God-forsaken afghan - and suddenly you feel an obsessive need to clean the toilet?

Well, I had an obsessive need to knit this cardigan! A 2 for $6 sale on Patons Shetland Chunky at Michael's was no help. Neither was this fantastic color (dark leaf green) which matches my eyes perfectly! There was no question, it had to be done.

When I started swatching, I knew I was not going to get the recommended gauge of 14 sts/inch with the recommended size 10 needles. I got more like 15 sts/inch and ended up deciding to just go for it at the 38" size using the 10 and 8 needles called for in the pattern. I added 4 extra rows in the yoke since historically I have found the armholes in Fitted Knits patterns to be too shallow. For those extra rows, which were worked back and forth, to keep the yo's intact, I worked to two stitches before the marker, ssk, yo, sl marker, k1, yo, k2tog. You can't even tell.

I did find a couple errors that are not in the currently published errata at Glampyre Knits. I've emailed Stefanie, but I'll include them here for anyone to reference. The final set of instructions for the stockinette/reverse stockinette ridges on the body begin with a RS row and should actually begin with the directive to knit 2 rows instead of just one. This way you get the knit row on the right side to transition into the horizontal ridges and the first purl ridge.

I was happy to see that the sleeves were written in the round. I find it funny that this cardigan, whose instructions are obviously to knit back and forth, has sleeve instructions in the round. The pullovers, which are knit in the round, all have instructions to knit the sleeves flat and seam them later! I don't see the point of that so I've been doing all my sleeves in the round just like how this pattern says. However, when you get to the bordered ribbing and the "next row" instructions with the decreases, they are completely wrong in both the directions and the numbers of stitches you'd end up with. It should read NEXT RND: Knit, inc 2 (0, 2, 2, 0) sts evenly spaced - 36 (36, 40, 44, 44).

I'm very happy with my finished product. The ribbing rides up a little but that's my only complaint. The rest of it fits perfectly. At first, because I live in Minnesota, I questioned the practicality of a short-sleeved cardigan. As I wore it, however, I realized that a short-sleeved cardi is perfect for me. I often roll up my sleeves while I work and all the time when I knit. Even when I use circulars, my needles sometimes get caught up inside longer sleeves. Then there's the times when I'm trying to cook, or helping with homework, or doing laundry, blah blah blah. So for me, you see, this cardigan is ideal.

Two Tone Shrug Pics

2007-11-13T13:15:00.000-06:00

It's the Two Tone Shrug from Fitted Knits. Yay!

I love it! It took just over 1 skein of Patons Classic Wool in Brown and one skein of Lion Wool that I hand-dyed with Wilton Icing Dyes. If I'd chosen two colors of the Patons, it would have only taken two skeins, one of each color.

I followed the numbers for the 15" size but since my gauge was a little larger than the pattern called for, it ended up being about 16". I was unsure of how exactly to measure - should I measure the area between the shoulders or from the edge of one shoulder to the edge of another? Ravelry came to the rescue, as usual, because I was able to not only look at pictures of everyone's finished shrugs but also read comments on the sizing, yarns, etc. Love it!

The whole project breezed along wonderfully and I've worn it 3 times now. The only thing that I notice as a slight problem is that I neglected to knit one round in the contrast color before beginning the ribbing on the sleeves. Thus, there is a color blip that I could do without. I'm still trying to decide if it bothers me enough to redo it or if I'll just make another. My daughter even said how cute it was, but of course when I asked her if she'd like one, she promptly said no, thank you. Kinda sad, because I love to knit for other people...but I also love to knit for myself so I'm doing quite well.

My contrasting color was a skein of Lion Wool that I'd hand-painted with Wilton Icing Dyes. I wound it around my kitchen island, tied it in several places, and laid it in a 13x9 pan with a little water in the bottom. I mixed my colors in squirty bottles - kinda like those picnic ketchup bottles - and dotted it around the pan. I was originally going for more of a brown mixture, but it ended up a beautiful autumn-y mix of oranges, pinks and light browns and beiges.

After painting the yarn, I cooked it in the microwave until the dye had exhausted, then hung it outside on my planter hangers to dry. My daughter really loves this when her bus goes right by our house and yarn is draped all over the place! I wound it up and stared at it for about a month and a half before the idea came to me to use it in the shrug.

I'd seen the pattern in the book, obviously, but never considered making it because I didn't know how to fit it. Then after seeing it on Ravelry, I was convinced. I held the brown Patons wool from my stash against my hand-dye and it was perfect. This is a great pattern for stash crashing!

The yarn really does talk, you sometimes just have to wait until it has something to say!

Happy Birthday to ME!

2007-11-12T15:55:00.000-06:00

Yep, Saturday was my birthday. Now I'm 34. My husband had been calling me 34 for months, saying that it was "close enough", but I wasn't willing to concede until the last possible moment. So as of 4:38 p.m. on Saturday, November 10, I am 34.

What did I get for my birthday, you ask? The kids gave me Brain Age 2 (I need all the help I can get), my dad and step mom gave me money (promptly used for Mason-Dixon Knitting), my mom gave me the Minnesota North Stars history book, and Tony is holding out until Christmas (presumably because the gift idea he has is too huge for birthday alone). But there was another, far better gift than I could have ever imagined...

A root canal!!!!

Aren't you jealous? When I first described my sudden tooth sensitivity to my mother, she gleefully exclaimed "I wonder if you need a root canal! I was about your age when I needed my first!" She said it in a way that made it sound like some sort of an accomplishment. In that case, I did it. Yay me! After this Friday, I hope I never have to experience it again.

The root canal did, however, afford me some excellent guilt-free knitting time. I got a free ticket out of Alicia's basketball tournament on Saturday so I spent all day working on the Short-Sleeved Cardigan from Fitted Knits. This sweater kind of snuck up on me. I bought the yarn (Patons Shetland Chunky, Dark Leaf Green) last week when it was on sale for something like $3 a ball at Michael's. I couldn't resist immediately swatching and casting on. Even though I've found several errors (in addition to the already published errata), they were easy enough to spot and remedy so I got through it ok. I made the 38" size, but I wish I'd made the 40". Because my gauge is a little tighter than called for, even though I followed the 38" numbers, it's actually a little smaller than that. It will be wearable, for sure, but we'll see if I feel self-conscious about wearing something so fitted.

I had a little trouble figuring out exactly how to pick up the button bands. Every time I counted I got way more stitches than I was supposed to. I eventually did get it right though and all that remains is to find the right buttons. I'll look at Walmart, but if I don't find anything there (highly likely), I'll hit Joann's on Wednesday.

I'll take some pictures tomorrow when the daylight is fresh again, but I wanted to get this post out now while all is still in my head. Have a great evening!