Addictive Person[ality]

What are you still doing here??

2006-10-04T10:02:00.000-04:00

Time to come over to the new site and update your bloglines!

Out of Hand

Come on over

2006-09-13T14:12:00.000-04:00

Here goes nothing!

Out of Hand

FO Report: Jaywalkers

2006-09-08T16:14:00.000-04:00

Yarn: Lorna's Laces in Vera.
Needles: Size 1 8 inch Crystal Palace dpns.
Gauge: uh....
Pattern: Jaywalkers from Magknits (pattern by Grumperina) size 36" bust
Time to Knit: May 18 - Sept 7
Notes: This was a fun pattern for the first sock, but by the time I got through the leg of the second one, I was kind of over it. I had to do the 84 st. version because my feet are so big, and I still have a hard time getting them over my heels. The pattern is also sort of constricting, so pre blocking (still haven't blocked) they itch after a little time on. I'm hoping that after a little wash, they will soften and loosen up a bit. I also don't like the way that the cuff and the heel fit with the chevron pattern. There's a bit of a bulge at the join of each, and I'm wondering whether it's going ot be particularly comfortable to wear. I suppose we'll see when the weather cools down enough.
All in all, I'm glad I made a pair, but I don't think I'll be knitting them again anytime soon.

FO Report: Picovoli

2006-09-07T22:08:00.000-04:00

Yarn: Shine Sport by Knitpicks in Aquamarine
Needles: Size 5 (3.75mm) 24inch Crystal Palace circs.
Gauge: 5.5 sts/inch
Pattern: Picovoli from Magknits (pattern by Grumperina) size 36" bust
Time to Knit: June 16 - July 15
Notes: This was a pretty simple knit. I made some changes to accomodate in the sense that the sizing in the pattern is a little big if you have an in between chest size and because I ran out of yarn. The original pattern calls for 6 sts/inch guage and I lowered my needle size to get 5.5 sts. This way I took an inch off around the entire peice, and it worked out perfectly. I had also heard that the rolling of the stockinette wasn't going to stop, even with the picos, so I opted for tedious, but lovely to look at, seed stitch. I did it around the neck line, the sleeves and the bottom -5 rows each. It worked out very well, but with the seed stitch and the attempt to add some length to it, I ran out of yarn. I happened to have some shine in cream on hand, so I used that to finish off the bottom and the sleeves. If I had known that I might run out, I would have used it around the neckline too. I like the way it looks, but perhaps not with this color combo. This color turned out to be mintier than I had originally hoped, but that's the thing about shine, it's always brighter than you'd expect.
I think it turned out well over all, and I'd recommend these changes to anyone who makes it. The seed stitch was a litttle painful with that lack of stretch in the yarn, but it's well worth the results. I think it's a great pattern and good yarn combo, and perfect for anyone who hasn't really made a garment before and/or wants to learn bust/waist shaping.

FO Report: Ene's Scarf

2006-09-06T14:37:00.000-04:00

Yarn: Rowan 4 ply Soft purchased from All About Yarn
Needles: Size 6 (4.25mm) 24inch Crystal Palace circs.
Gauge: It's lace. I never did a stockinette swatch.
Pattern: Ene's Scarf from Scarf Style (pattern by Nancy Bush)
Time to Knit: July 28 - September 1
Notes: This pattern was great, as was the yarn. It was a little tedious to cast on all those stitches, but, it was worth it. Apart from having over blocked this a bit, I'm very happy with the results

Sometimes you need a little help with your photoshoot =)

Some more:

FO Report: Diamond Fantasy Shawl

2006-09-05T12:49:00.000-04:00

Yarn: Peruvian Baby Silk from Elann in Mocha
Needles: Size 6 (4.25mm) 24inch Crystal Palace circs.
Gauge: It's lace. I never did a stockinette swatch.
Pattern: Diamond Fantasy Shawl by Sivia Harding (scarf length)
Time to Knit: June 22 - July 19
Notes: This is a great pattern, especially for a first time lace/shawl knitting. It is stunning, error free and easy to adapt. I wish that I would have been sure that I had enough yarn because I would have done another repeat. The only thing I recommend is to put in stitch markers for the repeats - especially for a first time lacer.
The yarn was also wonderful. It's soft, squishy, and a pleasure to work with. Best of all it's cheap. The only draw back here - I've found that I'm allergic to alpaca - bummer =(

(Strange look as a result of weird-neighbor activities. Seriously, very bizarre music)

-----------------------------------
This is the beginning of the parade of FOs. I could almost get one every day this week, but I'm a project short. Shucks!
I'm currently working on Leda's Dream stole. It's wonderful and I'm loving it, except I found I made a mistake. It's a good 30 rows back and ten rows above the life line so I'm at an impass. It looks really horrible to me, and I don't think I can go on without fixing it. It's in a seven stitch repeat, and I'm thinking of trying to insert another lifeline just below the error and pulling down those seven stitches, and reknitting them up. I know it's drastic, but it's better than having to reknit the entire 40 rows that are done in between. And if it doesn't work, there's no harm in trying. I expect it will look as scary as this (scroll to June 23rd), except I have no carpet to work on. You can't exactly pin your stole to the hardwood floors, so I haven't figured out what to do there, yet, but I'll get it sorted. If it works, the biggest pain will come from having the whole thing pinned out and having to knit backwards instead of turning the work to purl it. Honestly, if I'm able to fix the mistake this way, and that's the only "issue" I have to deal with, then sign me up!

Quiet

2006-08-29T16:29:00.000-04:00

Indeed I have been quiet, lately, but do not mistake that for idle. In fact, it seems I have been nothing but busy lately. Even if the hands aren't working, the mind is racing. Thankfully, this last part of the ene's has been rather repetitive and progressively easier. Well, it was easy until I ran out of yarn. I know, I know, you are surprised, that I of all people would possibly run out of yarn, but it's true. Sad, but true. In fact, it wasn't so many rows after this shot was taken that I came to the last 12 inches of yarn and had to come to terms with going to the LYS and praying that there was more. Some of you may remember that I purchased this yarn on sale, and so the chances of there being more were not so good. Thankfully, when I raced over there the next day, there was, in fact, one lone ball of ice blue sitting on the mountain of fall colors that she had gotten in. And, lucky for me, it was the same dye lot. I snatched it up and thanked my lucky stars.
Ofcourse, I don't really understand how it happened this time. The recommended yarn is two skeins of blackberry ridge laceweight which amounts to 700 yards. I bought four balls of Rowan 4-ply soft which amounts to just under 800 yards. I used virtually the same size needles (4.25mm instead of 4.0 mm), which is the only thing I can think is to blame. I'm a little surprised that that .25mm could eat up a hundred yards, but I suppose it's possible.
Nonetheless, all that matters now is that I have the ball and that I only have about ten rows and grafting left to do. That, and my other yarn has finally been shipped, so if I am left without a shawl to work, it won't be for long. I'd say left without lace, but I'm working on the embossed leaves socks, and considering it's got a YO every row, I guess those count. Even if they don't "count" they sure are as addicting to work on. Just like Beth said, they practically knit themselves!

Also, I currently have a thousand other things going on. As soon as I can get my act together, there will be a little parade of FO's around here and possibly some big changes. Hopefully the long weekend coming will afford me the time to catch everyone up to date!

In the air

2006-08-22T12:09:00.000-04:00

I feel lately like I have eight or so balls in the air, and for one reason or another, I'm waiting for them all to come down so I can juggling them some more. Amongst those balls are wedding things, crafty things, health things and life in general things. Come to think of it, it's probably more than eight balls, but I don't want to think about that, because that might cause me to spontaneously combust or worse, cause some mental health things to juggle as well. This carnival act that I'm doing is why the blog posts have been few and far between, and likely incoherent, even on the good days.
Many a day, I have thought about posting and then gotten caught up in something else, or have gotten as far as getting some pictures loaded, but haven't had the brain power to put together the post. I have, at least, managed to take pictures of my knitting progess. The knits can therefore grow before your eyes, all in one post. Like miracle grow for wool.
Like today, above we have a picture from last Thursday or Friday where I had just managed to get through the completely painful chart 2 of Ene's. The garter stitch nightmare, if you will. And to the right-ish, we have a picture from Monday (I think, I can't even tell you what day it is, let alone remember when I took pictures), where I finished one repeat of Chart 3. I have to go through that chart at least three more times, so, it's going to be awhile. At least I'm supposedly decreasing like mad, which I tell you it doesn't feel like. The purling back is as painful as ever. But, eventually I should be able to notice shorter rows and have the whole thing just zip by. Then one wee Chart 4, a three needle bind off of 7 stitches (which I've never done before, or even read the directions for, so it should be interesting), and a good soak and pin and we're done. The best (or worst, I'm trying to be optimistic here) part here, is that I bought this yarn because I was tired of not having a lace project to work on while waiting for my zephyr yarn to arrive. It's still not here, and it's possible that I might finish this project that wasn't supposed to happen, before I even get that yarn. I'm not really excited about this prospect, because it would leave me project-less again for awhile, but it might be amusing in a few years. Maybe.
But, for now, I will try not to think of all the not so funny things that might happen and concentrate on getting some of these balls out of the mix, and try to get a post in every now and again.

Pieced

2006-08-16T12:45:00.000-04:00

So, there she is. All set up and ready to go. And go she did. On Sunday, I pulled her out of the box, watched the DVD and started rolling. It was much easier since I've used a sewing machine before, but this machine is very easy to use straight out of the box. My only complaint is that they have this handy dandy needle threader that makes me blinder than trying to thread the needle normally. It's this tiny hook that is supposed to go through the eye of the needle and you catch the yarn on it and it sucks the hook and the thread with it, through the eye of the needle. The problem is, that if the needle is a little askew, this way or that, then the hook doesn't go through the eye and you spend all your time trying to figure out whether the hook went through or not. It's just easier to thread the damn needle the old fashioned way or with one of those little silver dealies that look like dimes. Other than that, I got no complaints. Granted, I haven't done much with this, or any sewing machine before, but so far, so good. What you see here is a picture from a couple of days ago. I've actually managed to:

finish piecing this project
sew together the backing for it
buy a bunch of other fabric for other projects
wash some of that fabric
restrain myself from using said fabric, and force myself to finish what I started
learn how to spell ~~peice~~ ~~peace~~ piece.

So, the next hurdle is basting and machine quilting. And if all else fails, I've still got Ene - that might be missing a stich. Well, I've still got my embossed leaves socks - that might be missing a row. Hrm.....well, there's always save the date cards that need to be done, sooner rather than later. Oy, excuse me while I go bury my head in the sand.

-----------------------------
Thanks to everyone for the kind words about my back. I am seeing a doctor about it as it's not going away on its own, and I did finally get medicine for it. Which I forgot to take this morning, which is letting me know that the problem isn't just going away. I have had an MRI and it's something muscular, so we're on our way to figuring out what it is.

Pain in the back

2006-08-11T14:59:00.000-04:00

Last night I managed to get quite a bit of knitting done. Partially because I wanted to, and partially because I can't really do anything else. At this point, I'm not sure what's going on, but my back is in constant pain. It really stinks, but it sure is condusive to getting a lot of knitting done. What you see here is the completed first chart. I think I did four or five rows last night to finish this chart and then I managed to get two exceedingly boring rows of chart two done. The second chart is really, really boring. It's basically garter stitch back and forth. The repeat section is two knit stitches repeated 73 times on each side of the one center stitch. Good times. There's not very many rows on the chart, but goodness are they painful. If I thought I could sleep and do garter stitch, this might be the time to start.

Anyhow, after I finished the first chart repeat, this is all the yarn that I had left. I was pretty excited that I made it through the chart with the first ball. Ofcourse that should mean that I'm a quarter of the way through! In fact, it should mean it's a little more than that considering I have just under 800 yards and the pattern calls for 700. I'm extatic and I'm hoping to get more done this weekend.

Have a good weekend!

The dark side

2006-08-09T13:19:00.000-04:00

What you see here in these pitifully sad photos might be some fabric that I bought yesterday and I might be planning on sewing it together with the sewing machine that I got for my birthday that I might have asked for exclusively. Just might. I mean, I wouldn't want you to think that I was just going to abandon knitting for sewing, or something crazy like that. I mean, the machine isn't even out of the box yet. And frankly, I'm a little scared of it. I've never used a brand spanking new sewing machine in my life. I've worked with plenty of old, crotchety machines that all had their share of stories and attitude problems. I've had to nurse plenty of machines through the last couple of yards and love them and clean them out after they pitched a fit. But never something new. Never one that someone that knew what they were doing hadn't used before. Someone that had set it up and worked on it. One that hadn't already proven it's worth. So, needless to say, I'm a little nervous. A little aprehensive, maybe. Just a little. I mean, after all, it came with a dvd. It's going to be okay.
But, having said all that, I refuse to tell you what I'm going to make. You know, in case it doesn't actually work out. In case, it becomes signifigantly smaller than planned and you say to yourself, I thought she was make a (insert project here). Doesn't that look a little small to you? I'm just sayin'. But, when it's done, and it will be done, I'll fill you in.

In knitting news, I cast on, several times (as in, ooops, damnit! riiiiip. repeat as necessary), for the embossed leaves, and I think I'm good to go now. I'm using the koigu and I'm doing it as written. I only managed to get 5 rounds knit, but it slid over my ankle and on to my leg, so I take that as a good sign. I shall push forward and see how it goes after a pattern repeat.

And in entertainment news we have pictures:

Fiance has a laundry system that involves washing all his white socks at once, and then sorting them on the couch. However, he doesn't always get to them right away. I call this phenomena sock mountain. Sunshine loves sock mountain. You should see her stalk over to it and try to make a cat shaped hole, big enough to get her wide load into, in the socks. If she could figure out how to burrow into them, she would. She spent all night like this on sock mountain, and if it was available, she'd probably make this her new kitty perch.
It's funny, as long as it's not my socks. =)

August Birthday Package!

2006-08-08T10:42:00.000-04:00

On Friday, which was my birthday, I received my birthday swap package from Jennifer. I was so excited. This is actually the first swap I've ever done, and believe me, I'm pleased as punch. Below are the pictures of my great package.
Mine will be going out soon to a whole 'nother continent later this week. It's all gathered, I just have to wrap it up, and hermetically seal it so no one is tempted to crack it open. I've found that the more painful something looks to open, the less likely it is to get inspected at customs. Lots of packing tape is used to acheive this effect. =)

Left: The box all wrapped up nice. If it looks a little mutilated, that's my fault. Bull in a china shop I tell you.
Right: Look at that kitty face in all that yarn! Cats are so cute when they're in pictures and aren't shedding all over creation.

Left: Contents of the box. The box itself is wooden and has little tape measures painted all over it. I have picture but it's horribly dark. You're just going to have to take my word on this one. It's very cool.
Right: A ton of enormous smarties. I love smarties. Can't get enough of them! And these one are ginormous. I literally jumped up and down when I saw these candies =)

Left: Dog used for scale to show you how big these smarties are!
Right: The final contents of the package. That's a wire knitting pattern for earrings, some wire to work with, 2 skeins of garnstudio cotton/viscose, a wee scrapbooking kit, 2 fabby lotions and some balm from bath and bodyworks, 1 giant skein of the softest yarn ever, 1 sock pattern, and another very cute card. (excluding enormous bundle of smarties)

In knitting news, all I have left to do is kitchener the toe of the second jaywalker. I would have done it last night, but I need an hour of peace and quiet to kitchener and then another hour of cussing and general complaining to fix my grafting mistake. Good times, I tell you. I didn't have said time last night, but I should later this week.

Since I didn't have time to finish something, I cast on and knit through the first three pattern rounds of the embossed leaves socks for IK. I used the medium weight STR that I got at MD S&W, but it's not working out. I thought that I was going to need an extra 4 stitches in the sock to make it wide enough around, but it ended up being too big. This is the second failed attempt with this brand of yarn, and I'm thoroughly frustrated with it. I have some dark green koigu in the stash and I think that since the pattern is written with that, that that's what I'm going to use. I have to decided if I'm going to put those extra stitches in or not. I definately didn't need them with the STR, but it's a good deal heavier than the koigu. I think I'm going to stick with the pattern and see how it goes. Really, the sock cuff is as good as a swatch to me, and what's another trip to frog pond? *sigh*

Workspace

2006-08-04T09:09:00.000-04:00

Working a charted peice off of a little peice of paper with post it notes on it, balanced on the arm of the couch wasn't really cutting it anymore. Especially with the large number of stitches on Ene's, so I went out and created myself a little work space. I bought this dry erase board that is also magnetic and got myself a couple of rulers. The metal ruler had some cork on the back of it, and once I put the magnets on the back it was too tall and casted a shadow, so I pulled them off and since the cork was destroyed anyway, I yanked all the cork off the back of the ruler. I got me some goof off to clean up the adhesive and it was better than new. I took some low profile magnets and stuck them on the back, and now I have the perfect thing to line up the row. The colored ones are in case I have a repeat that I keep going past. This way I can block myself in with rulers and also so I can look at some happy colors to look at =)

And speaking of happy, despite the fact that my little counter over there -------------> says that it's -1 day until my birthday, it is actually my birthday. Yay! to me and to all the other fabulous things in history that happened today:

Birthdays:
1755 Nicolas-Jacque Conte inventor (modern pencil) - really, it would still be stone and chisel without the pencil

1901 Louis Armstrong New Orleans, Jazz musician & bandleader, "Hello Dolly" - oldest musician in Billboard history to have a Number One song - How cool is he??

1955 Billy Bob Thornton Hot Springs, Ark. US. actor, 'Sling Blade','A Family Thing' - How not cool is that?

Events:
1693 Dom Perignon invents champagne - Oh the beauty of ~~champain~~ champagne

1881 122ø F (50ø C), Seville, Spain (European record) - Talk about a heat wave. Phew!

1970 Jim Morrison arrested for drunkenness - Maybe he had the champagne.

Move along, nothing to see here

2006-08-01T14:37:00.000-04:00

I have been extremely busy this past weekend, and haven't had much time to knit at all. I did manage to get Ene's scarf cast on again and the first four rows of chart one completed, but that's about it. I'd love to show it to you, but it just looks like a bunch of blue shoved on a needle. The scallops at the bottom are starting to take shape, but I doubt a visible pattern will really emerge until I finish the whole of the first chart, and that's going to be awhile. I'm averaging about 45 minutes a row. It's very sad. It takes me about an hour to make it through a RS row and a half hour to do a WS because it's mostly purling all the way back. I know the more I knit on it, the faster the rows are going to be, but this starting big and decreasing down just isn't for me. I think it's because I get so overwhelmed at the number of stitches. Both times I cast on this puppy I counted and recounted and put stitch markers ever twenty stitches, but I still had issues. Even on the second try I was still short a stitch and I just made it up with the tail. It looks like it will hold, and it was that I was short a stitch and not a pattern mistake, thankfully, so the rest of the rows are working out. I hope it keeps working out. I need to get a lifeline in, sooner, rather than later, so that I don't go nuts if something does happen. Hopefully I won't need to use it, and sometime in the next twelve months, I should have a visual update for you. Until then, I'll just keep plodding along....

Take 2

2006-07-28T15:10:00.000-04:00

This is the valiant first try for ene's scarf. I managed to cast on the required 375 stitches and then try the first row. I say try, because when I got to the end I was either 15 stitches short or 5 stitches too many. Either way, it was a bad sign. It was absolute torture for me to have to CO that many stitches to begin with, but to get to the end of the row and realize that you did something very wrong, somewhere, was the worst feeling. I knew it was going happen, though. Me, who can't count, casting on 375 stitches (with the yarn doubled, btw....you know, to add insult to injury) there was just no way I couldn't screw up. I'm pretty sure that I CO the right number, and that I got distracted somewhere in that first row and goofed up. Now, I maybe could have tinked back to find my mistake, but I was using size 5s instead of 6s and I could tell that it was just going to make too dense a fabric for the yarn that I got. The yarn, by the way, is Rowan 4 ply soft in Whisper, which I think is the perfect color and I got it on sale (did you hear me squeal?). So, in an angry fit, I pulled off all the stitches and frogged. This seems like a relatively simple task, except that getting the stitches over the join was a nightmare.
As it is my hands hurt just thinking about how obnoxious knitting that first row was to begin with. At first I thought it the needles fault. These are Plymouth Bamboo and it's my first time using them. I was taking Plymouth's name in vain for quite awhile as I worked on re winding the ball so I could CO again. I don't happen to have any other needles (except size 1s) in 32" and decided that I might as well cram all those stitches on another pair of needles. If I couldn't fit them, then I would just have to buy another set of needles (!). I was a little pissy at this point. Can you tell? So, I pulled out the trusty Crystal Palace size 6s (4.25mm). This is a half mm larger than the size 5s, and though the join in the needles is frustrating, I figured nothing could be as frustrating as the Plymouths. So I spent another hour and half getting all those stitches on there. About half way through, it got really hard to move the stitches along and I realized that that's the way it goes when you get that many doubled stiches on the needles. Really, and I knew this, I should have used my 7s to cast on and switched them to the 6s. It would have helped a lot, but I wasn't exactly thinking clearly. At least I had the clarity to stop there, when I got all the stitches on the needles. I was in no state to work the first row of a 375 stitch "scarf". So, sometime this weekend I'm going to sit down in some peace and quiet, when I have a good hour to put aside, and get through that first row and get that lifeline put in. I know there is just no way I'm going to make it through this first chart without one, and if I want to make this baby, which I do, I'd better break out that waste yarn. I think you know what the chances are for me casting on another 375 stitches doubled are. I'll give you two guesses, and the first one doesn't count. ;)

Another type of fiber

2006-07-26T12:48:00.000-04:00

Okay, so it's not really a type of fiber, but fiber goes into paper, right? It's a crafty thing, that's for sure. This is a picture of the paper that I picked up from Joann's yesterday. I've been trolling the internet for ideas and papers to use for our save the date cards for the wedding, and have been unable to really find what I was looking for. As a last ditch effort (and because the LYS was closed yesterday) I dropped by Joann's for one last look. Luckily for me they happened to be having a big ol' sale on their scrapbooking papers. If you like paper or make cards/scrapbook, that sort of thing, go now! I'll wait. Really.
Normally the papers go for a little over 2 for $1 and their sale is for 5 for $1! When I saw that, I decided that there must be something that worked for me, and in fact, I found the perfect colors and textured paper in the right weight. So I got all the paper I'd need, and all I had to do was cut it out. Having been a theatre major in school, I happened to have all the tools I'd need to cut down the 12x12 sheets so that I could start the process. I cut a bunch of sheets last night, but I still have a bunch more to cut out. This is the quick part, though. What's going to take forever, and what will probably make me curse up a storm for having come up with this oh so brilliant idea, is the number punching. The blue card there is the top and the coral is the background. The wedding date is punched out with these kicking number punches that I bought off of ebay. Ofcourse, there's a bit of work involved with getting them lined up and such. It's not complicated, but it is going to suck the time away. But, at least I enjoy it, for now =) After that's all done, then I have to write out the saving the date part. Here's where I get a little nervous. I do have good handwriting and all, but it's got to be in a great ink, and it's permanent, seeing as how you can't just go using white out on a blue peice of paper. I could use a stamp, but at the end of the day, I still have to write our names and such on it, so I might as well write the whole thing. So, I'm on the hunt for the perfect pen. Wish me luck!

In the knitting news, DFS is done and blocked. Here's a quick shot. She looks great to me, but I haven't gotten around to taking real life pics of her yet. I'm hoping that Fiance will help me get some pics of this and the pico over the weekend. I just haven't had the energy to get that done lately, and we've been busy busy busy. I hope to have two, maybe three(!) FO reports next week. The third thing is the Jaywalkers. I'm working on the foot of the second sock, and after all this lace knitting, socks are so.damn.boring. Really, I'm ready to poke my eyes out. At least there's some patterning, I think if all it was a plain stockinette sock, I'd be done for. I'd drown in my own boredom. Thankfully it shouldn't be too much longer before my laceweight gets here (I keep thinking, any day now, but it still hasn't come), and perhaps, if my luck hasn't run out, then I can find something at the LYS today to work on. I need fingering weight for Ene's scarf, and she usually keeps that pretty well stocked. Plus I have a coupon, and things are supposedly on sale. If I find something I like, on sale, in the right color, with all the dye lots there, you might hear me cheering. Yeah, even on the west coast.

Running out of yarn

2006-07-19T15:46:00.000-04:00

I seem to have a problem lately, where I run out of yarn with just a few stitches left. So.frustrating. I have finished my pico, nearly killing my hands in the process, but I ran out of yarn working on it. I don't know if it was the seed stitch or the attempt to add some length, but I got to the last inch or so before the seed stitch and noticed that the skein was looking a little thin. I thought I might have had another skein, but after searching for a couple of minutes I went back to it and counted ends. Nope, 5 skeins ordered, 5 joins on the shirt. Doh! So I knit and knit until I ran out of yarn. In fact, since I'm constantly thinking I'm going to run out of yarn, and I don't, I decided to give it a try for one more round. I came up about 10 stitches short. Blast! and some other not so lady like words may have been muttered. So I tinked back almost 200 stitches and cut off the excess. I ended up using some cream Shine that I had leftover from the baby blanket to finish the bottom and the sleeves. When I get some energy, and the watermelon stain out of it, I will show the FO.
In the meantime, I haven't had anything to knit except the bind off for the DFS, so last night I got to it. Honestly, I thought it would take me much longer to do, but I did the i-cord bind off for over 200 stitches in about an hour. I was pretty happy with that. What I wasn't happy with was that the above pic is how many stitches I had left, and this pic is how much yarn left I had left to do them and weave in.
So.not.pleased. I ended up having to take the other ball and do a russian join so that I could do these stitches and weave the end in. I sure hope it stays. It's a light shawl, and I sort of doubt it will be used all that much, so I'm optimistic, but we'll see.

So, the shawl is done, but I have to block it. We've loaned our futon/guest bed to someone, so now I don't have a large space to block the sucker. I'm thinking I can throw a bunch of towels on the bed and do it this weekend during the day. Otherwise, I got nothing until the futon comes back. I guess it's not all that important because the wedding isn't for a year, but it would be nice to see what it looks like. Right now, it's pretty silly looking - all wide and short. Tugging on it just isn't the same. Plus, I'd like to know how this yarn blocks so I can decide if I want to use it again for any of the other shawls I plan to do. But more on that later. Hey, a girl's got to save something to talk about when the blogs a little slow and the new yarn is still on it's way. =)

Rilly behind

2006-07-14T15:00:00.000-04:00

Well, hello there! I bet you thunk that I had slid off the face of the planet. But not so. I've just been busy busy busy with wedding planning and lace knitting obsession.
I've had oh so many blog entries floating around my head, but none of them made it to reality. So I'll give you the sad tales in brief(ish).

First, this is sadly dark picture is evidence of the knitting. It's the DFS almost done short of the i-cord bind off. By my calculations I have a little over 200 stitches on the needles and that's a LOT of stitches to bind off i-cord style. I've done one i-cord bind off in the past, on the hat that never happened, and it took fricking forever. I am NOT looking forward to it. But, at least I've finished all the chart repeats. I have considered and re-considered doing one more chart repeat, but I only have a little over a hundred yards of yarn left (slightly more than one ball) and I just don't think I can make it. Not only will I run out of yarn, I'll run out of emotional stability. It seems that ever since I got myself into the fifth chart repeat I have done nothing but make mistakes. One of those blog entries was going to be about the disaster that happened when I dropped two stitches. The ones that laddered down four rows. Four rows that I eventually ended up tinking back so that I could figure out what stitches got lost. I am clearly NOT an experience lace knitter because I couldn't figure out how the chart repeats lined up and had to just go back to the drawing board. I am, however, experienced enough to know about a lifeline and to decide not to use it. Note to self, even if I don't do it every row, once a chart repeat is advisable. I ended up tinking back to one row short of the beginning of the chart, and I guarantee you that it would have taken me far less time to rip out that extra couple of rows and reknit it than it was to sit and ponder for hours what was wrong and then end up tinking back. *Sigh* Live and learn, no?

I've also done some work on the Seed-ovoli, but none this week. I was hoping to have it done and ready to wear by Sunday since my Mom is being so sweet and throwing us an engagement party, but I just don't think it's going to happen. I still have a couple of decreases to go and a few inches and five rows of seed stitch. When you're throwing, we know how long that takes (read forever).

So now I have two forever long finishing projects and I will have to FOs to present. Plus, if I could get around to knitting that foot of my second Jaywalker, I'd have three, but let's not get out of control here. I wouldn't want to freak you guys out with that many FOs at once. It would be like I knit rilly fast, and we know that ain't the truth ;)

Have happy and healthy summer weekends. Hopefully be back with more to report soon. Mwah!

Can't keep up

2006-07-06T14:58:00.000-04:00

This picture was taking several days ago and I have made so much progress since then, but haven't ~~remembered~~ had time to take a picture. I think that this is one and a half or a little more of chart repeats, and right now, I'm only a few rows short of having the third chart repeat completed. Also, once I purl back this row, I'll have to start my second ball of yarn. There's already enough ends to make it look like I've used two balls, but when I wound up this yarn, there was a nasty bit where the yarn had come unplied and untwisted, so I cut it out. It's more ends to weave in, but with this being lace, there would have been no way to hide that funky bit. It sort of stinks, though, because I'm worried about weaving the ends in the lace and having them stay put. Having more ends to weave in, does not make me feel any better. Thankfully the border is garter stitch, so I imagine it will be a little easier to hide the ends and make them stay put, but if anyone has any words of wisdom about hiding those ends and making them stay, I'd love to hear it!

I'm also rolling right along on my Seed-ovoli. I'm only a couple of rows short of the waist increases and then I go to the edging, pick up and knit a little sleeve and I'm done! It's going really quickly, but that's because it's the only thing I can knit right now while watching tv. I did knit a little on the shawl in front of the tv the other night, and it went pretty well, but I can't be watching anything to visually interesting, or I'm done for. Ofcourse, purling back is starting to take an eternity and I'm not even half way through, so by the time that I get to the fourth or fifth repeat, purling back will take a tv show anyway, and I don't really have to pay attention to that. And believe me, that purling is getting really, really old, and I really need a distraction from it.

August birthday swap

2006-07-03T08:56:00.000-04:00

Nothing to see here unless your my swap partner ;)
Update to follow soon about my DFS progress.

What day is your birthday?
August 4th

Are you crafty?
Sometimes. I do random projects with found objects and paper, but usually for gifts around the holidays.

Would you enjoy things like: Buttons, ribbons and embellishments?
No

Do you dye your own wool?
I haven't yet, but I think it would be fun to try.

Do you like to scrapbook or make homemade cards?
I don't scrap book, but sometimes I do make cards and such. I like fun hole punchers and scissors, but I'm not really into special papers or stickers.

What small project would you be interested in making? Socks, mittens, scarf, hat, baby items, wash cloths, doilies, shrugs etc
I love to make socks, but I'd also like to make the one skein wonder shrug, or something like that.

What are your favorite scents?
Rose, freesia, vanilla

Do you like hand lotions or soaps?
I love lotions, but don't really use hard soaps. I just don't like anything where the scent is overwhelming.

Do you like to sew or embroider items?
I'm thinking about getting a sewing machine, but don't have one yet, and I haven't embroidered for years. If I were to embroider, it would have to be an easy starter project.

Do you like beads?
I don't bead, per se, but I would like to try knitting with wire and beads.

What kind of mail-able snacks do you like to eat?
I love smarties and that type of semi hard candy.

Do you like to wear costume jewelry? Necklace, earrings, bracelets etc.
Not really.

Do you like to play cards or board games?
I like goofy card games and trivia games, but nothing too complicated.

What are your favorite colors of yarn? Solids, varigated, heathers or self stripping yarns?
All of the above. I like blues and greens a lot, but I am fond of lots of light or bright colors and try to stay away from knitting something too dark.

Do you like kitchen magnets or key rings?
Not really.

Do you like picture frames?
I like smaller ones like 4x6 or so because that's what size I can print out. I really like ones with botanical things like pressed flowers or leaves.

Do you like to make/or use stitch markers?
I use them alot. I have a bunch of red and blue ones and I need some other colors.

Do you collect anything?
I love tropical fish things and palm trees.

Do you have any allergies? Smoke, food, fiber, pets, etc.
I'm allergic to cats (but we have a cat, so it's not big deal) and I'm not good with really raw wools or that aren't blends. I'm fine with most wool blends including alpaca.

Do you have any hobbies?
I garden, mostly vegetables.

Do you like scented or unscented candles?
Scented is good as long as it's not too strong.

Are you a fiber snob?
I'm not really a snob, but can't wear scratchy wools or much acrylic.

Growth

2006-06-29T14:14:00.002-04:00

I present to you the humble beginnings of the Diamond Fantasy Shawl (DFS). I haven't even finished one repeat of the main chart, but I couldn't be happier with the way everything is going. Mostly it's because I can manage to get through one right side row without screwing up, tinking back, starting over, fixing the dropped stitches, and obscene amount of rather unlady like language. This is mostly happening because I've come to terms with the fact that I'm unable to do lace and watch tv at the same time. I know that I keep saying this over and over, but it's a big step in personal acceptance for me. I am a MAJOR multi-tasker (again with the ADD) and find it incredibly hard to not being doing several things at once. This explains why I learned to knit in the first place. I can't just sit and watch tv, it makes me insane. I used to quilt, but after I got my first quilt hand peiced (it's queen size. Don't ever say I don't dive in head first into my hobbies) I kind of got stuck and gave up. I know that I will get it done eventually, it just might take awhile. Like til retirement, but that's another story.
Anyhow, coming to terms with my inability to do any two tasks skillfully at the same time (within reason - I'm not talking about climbing a mountain and sewing on a button here. I consider climbing a mountain and trying to stay alive multi-tasking enough) is a really big deal to me. Not only that, I like working on this enough to not give it up because I know it's the only thing I'm able to work on. Also, another big personal growth point for me.

Blame it on the rain...

2006-06-27T14:48:00.000-04:00

This absolutely hideous, dark pic, that should probably not even appear here, is a desperate attempt to show proof of knitting. This is my progress on the Seed-ovli and I think I'm doing pretty good. I have altered the gauge to get a finished in-between size, and it's working out beautifully. I even managed to try it on and only drop a couple of stitches, so I must say that this is moving along pretty well. The seed stitch is working nicely for preventing the rolling and it doesn't add too much bulk or length to the garment. I recommend it highly to anyone who cannot stand the rolling, but isn't up for all the annoyance of a picot edging.
So, if you could actually see this picture you would be able to tell that I'm about 2 inches below the armhole - which is about three inches before the waist decreases. All in all, pretty good considering the insanity that has been my life lately. Sadly, with big plans this week, which ofcourse involve having the house clean, which it could be further from at the moment, the knitting time is going down the tubes. I would like to get this done in the next few weeks, but that is unlikely at best. Which, actually, is okay for me, and completely out of character. I say that because I have the diamond fantasy shawl that I've started and is my focused knitting right now. It's fun, and all I want to work on, but with my ADD I know better than to try to work on it with the tv on. So plain, old stockinette it is. It may be tedious some days, but at least I can measure my progress and feel like I got somewhere. It's also considerably better than tinking back rows and rows of lace, trying to figure out where things went so horrible wrong.

In an attempt to distract you from the horrible knitting picture, I leave you with this cute little guy we saw in California.

Did it work?

Still Knitting

2006-06-22T15:09:00.000-04:00

So, sadly, I have no pictures to show you because I've been a little too busy to take them. Mostly the time has been being eaten up by taking care of the garden, I've been getting eaten by the mosquitos. Seriously, they are so bad in the mid-atlantic, I can't go outside without taking a bath in Skin So Soft or I get swarmed. Yuck!
Anyhow....I have been knitting on the dishcloths and it's been a pretty fun experience. It's nice to not have to worry about whether it will fit or about making mistakes or wasting/running out of yarn. It really is a good way to take a break from a stressful lace project or that sweater you keep casting on and frogging because it's not working. Plus it's a nice way to test a lace or stitch pattern on something a little bigger. In the end, even if you don't like it, you got something useful out of the work ;) So I have this one finished already, and I only need to do one more repeat on this one and I'll call it done. I made a total rookie, with a capital R, mistake on that one though. I admired the way the dishcloth had this nice garter stitch border around it to frame it, and then I promptly cast on exactly the number of stitches I needed and started the pattern from row 1. The best part is that I was bemoaning how tight my cast on was the whole way through, and wishing that there was some sort of border rows. I am so. damn. smart. Really.
So that one looks a little goofy, but the pattern is still nice and it's drapey and lacey, and you know what? It's a dishcloth and I don't care. Stress free knitting....I love it!

And, finally, I have chosen the first lace pattern I'm going to knit, and likely the yarn as well. I'm going for the Diamond Fantasy Shawl which I purchased/downloaded from this site. This was a great experience, because on most websites, you'd have to buy the pattern, pay for the shipping, then wait for it to get to you. Now, if you were ordering the yarn from the site too, it might not be such an issue, but I happen to have this yarn leftover from the failed attempt at the lacey scarf. On paper, the yarn is ideal for the pattern and I have just over 400 yards to work with, which is perfect for the "scarf size" of the pattern. But, back to the site....because I have the yarn in the stash and have the patience of a hungry two year old in an ice cream parlor, I wanted to download the pattern. This was the only site I found that would do that. Not only does it allow you to do it, but it gives you three shots at it. I still have 2 more shots at downloading and until Sat. to do it. It worked perfectly the first time, but if something had gone wrong, it would have been no big deal. To me, in this not so perfect world of today's technology, this is a great way to make sure your customers are happy. There was no nervousness for me about something going wrong with my 1 alotted download, and no worry that I would have customer service issues if something happened. Many of the patterns are available for download, and I would highly recommend it.

Tonight I have to go home, find something to wear to the wedding this weekend, pack it all up, pack up everything for Jordan, and get ready in general to leave tomorrow afternoon. That is, after working all morning. I still seem to think that I can get one more cloth done before then. My feet are rooted firmly in the land of not going to happen, but my hands are convinced they fly at the speed of sound. When I get back, I'll let you know who won, but I'm pretty sure you can guess this already. But if you figure it out, don't tell my hands, I like them, disillusioned as they are.

An attack of Start-itis

2006-06-19T15:11:00.000-04:00

Firstly I'd like to thank everyone for their help and kind words about everything random I've been writing about lately. I feel like I'm all over the place lately, and you gals are following right along. So thank you for coming along for the ride. And thank you to all the people that have commented that I can't get back to because Blogger stinks and won't let me reply. The comments are greatly appreciated. =)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When last I came up for air I noticed that I had purchased a unreasonable amount of sock yarn and little to no other weights, and I realized I didn't care. But suddenly it has hit me that I want to do other things. Many other things. And all at once. I have gone from the focused finisher to the ADD knitter, with no understanding of how or why. Why, today alone I've set myself up with four skeins of Sugar & Cream to make face/dish cloth wrappers for presents to our friends who are getting married THIS weekend. As if that's not bad enough, they really need to be done and ready to go by Friday morning so they can be packed, because we're spending the weekend away at this not so far away destination wedding. The best part is that I have NO idea what we would "wrap" in these cloths. Well, I have some ideas, but none of them are good.
Ofcourse, it would have been better to come up with this not so brilliant idea before the weekened so I would have had more time to work on them, but I was thinking too hard about the yarn for the Picovoli, which I got on Saturday. I cast on that evening and spent my knitting time this weekend working on it. Above is as far as I've gotten. I decided to edge it in seed stitch because I've heard that no amount of steaming was going to stop the rolling, and I'm just not up for that. It's only 5 rows, but that's what took me the longest, ofcourse. I'm knitting this continetal, but since my purling really really stinks, I did the seed stitch by throwing, and there went my free time. Ah, seed stich, you are so lovely, and so painful.
And, as if getting cloths done by this weekend, and the seed stitch-ovli done in time to wear it this summer, and the foot of the second jaywalker that I seem to refuse to work on, isn't enough, I'm sitting here surfing for lace patterns! I must be crazy. I've decided that I want to make a shawl for my Grandmother and a stole for my Mother as potential "wedding" presents, if you will. They wouldn't be due for another year or so, so I figured now is a good time to get started so that I don't get stressed out when something doesn't work, or with Christmas knitting, and so forth. But as any procrastinator knows, the longer you give yourself to finish something, the more you're going to get absorbed in the "planning" and the less in the doing, and the closer you are willing to wait to the finish date because it's all planned so well, it will just fly by. Yeah. right.
So, out of nowhere, I've decided that I need a few more sets of hands so I can work on several knitting projects at once. Plus I've decided that I need to rearrange my office and clean the heck out of it. Oh, and paint the living room and dining room. And give the house the good "spring cleaning" it didn't get before. And a whole myriad of other things that I'm excited about starting.
I'm really not sure who I'm channeling right now, but it's kind of cool. That is, as long as this starter happens to be a finisher too. I guess that remains to be seen!

And in the Polling the People part of the blog:
If anyone knows any fabulous shawl patterns or laceweight yarns, let me know. I'm liking things like this and this and this. I like the shawls to have a clear, well written pattern that won't make my head explode, but not painful monotony either. I'd also like it to either be not be too large or work from the bottom up, so I can make it as large as I want. My Grandmother is a small woman and doesn't need a shawl with a 7 foot wingspan.
On the yarn front, I'm liking the slightly fuzzy ones, like Kid Silk Haze, but am worried about the mohair itchiness factor, the fact that it would be for summer wear, and the price. I feel like I've worked with a fair amount of different weights of yarn, but no laceweights, so I have no idea what I'm looking for.

And now that I've been crazed, obnoxious and demanding, all in the same post, I think I'll go surf some more new things to make. Clearly, this isn't going to get better anytime soon.

Gone to the Garden

2006-06-16T13:49:00.000-04:00

A photo essay

This is what happens when you call a building materials company and ask them to drop off a couple (or seven) tons of dirt at your house....
That is, after you slap down your credit card first. Which is not nearly as fun as slapping down the plastic at the LYS.

When they leave a pile like this in your driveway, you can count on needing the Advil the next day for the broken back you're about to get....

To give you an idea of perspective, that is the handsome, and over 6'0 tall, Fiance in the background, ready to dive into the pile of dirt.

Here is the largest bed that I built. The pictures are a little hazy because of all the sun, but it's got three tomato plants and a pepper and zucchini plant in there. There are also several marigolds in there to keep away the mosquitos (from me) and the rabbits (from my bounty).

This bed is black dog optional.

This is the main veggie bed. It gets a lot of sun and hopefully will make my tomatoes, peppers and yellow squash happy. Our back door, which leads right into the kitchen, is just to the right of this picture, so I can easily hop right out there and give them some water or snatch up some food.

This is the way the shed area used to look before we moved in...

And this is it now. I didn't have enough sunny spaces for all the plants I bought, so we got some containers to plant them in, and I (slowly) moved all the bricks that were on the side over and Fiance and our neighbor moved the wood pile around the corner - all at once!

In the end, we didn't use all the dirt, so our neighbor got a bunch and the rest is now stored safely away under this tarp until further notice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And in knitting land, for you I have no pictures. Sorry 'bout that, but the second jaywalker is about as interesting as the first. I have just turned the heel and need to pick up stitches.
I am also in the considering stage of one project and the I-am-waiting-for-my-damn-yarn-to-get-here in another. The considering is for several lacey things that I would like to make for some family and the already ordered, tapping my toe waiting, is for some Shine Sport to make picovoli. I had several skeins leftover from the baby blanket, so I used that to start a swatch last night. Another couple of hours and I'll have a good size swatch to measure. I'm hoping to get gauge first time since I have absolutely no patience for knitting gauge swatches in the round. But it must be done *sigh*

I hope that everyone has a wonderful weekend. My crazy family arrives tonight, so things ~~might~~ will get way hectic, and very odd pictures might find their way here. Do not be alarmed, things will return to ~~normal~~ the usual ~~someday~~ soon (if your definition of soon is 43 days or so).

HAPPY WEEKENDS TO ALL!!!!

FO Report: Yarrow Ribbed Socks

2006-06-13T14:41:00.000-04:00

Yarn: Vesper Sock Yarn in Knit and Tonic colorway
Needles: Size 1 8inch Crystal Palace dpns.
Gauge: 9 sts and 12 rows per inch (Alert the media that I know my gauge for once!)
Pattern: Yarrow rib socks from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush
Measurements: Size 9 feet and a 7" cuff
Time to Knit: April 24 - May 13
Notes:

After finally deciding on this pattern, I happily knit along. I think they turned out pretty well and I'm happy with them.
Toe Mods: I can't even remember what toe you're supposed to do, but I changed it to the flat toe. I just followed the flat toe directions in the beginning of the book. I'm now a big fan of the flatter toes and kitchenering in general, because it works very well with my wide foot.
I liked working with this yarn, but I doubt I'll use it again. Not because it's not lovely, but I'm a huge fan of superwash yarn for socks and a yarn with some nylon in it. Plus Vesper is nearly impossible to get a hold of anymore, and I've surrendered.
The pattern was great as usual and I'd totally do it again. I even liked the decorative heel flap work. There was some garter stitch on the flap, and it kept it interesting. Also, the gusset decreases are p2tog, which made for decorative decreases that I would definately use again.

Off the Wall

2006-06-09T13:46:00.000-04:00

I would call this post random, but I think it's beyond that stage, so here we go:

Blogger has been b&%$# in the last couple of days, and I'm highly annoyed. This post was supposed to show up on Wed. but I couldn't even get to creating a new post. It's been bad for pics and leaving comments too, so if I usually comment on your site, and I haven't, and you have blogger, that might be why.
I'm almost done my three repeats on my Pomatomus sock and I'm just not feeling it. It's taken me a very long time to get used to the pattern, and now that I finally have, I'm not liking the finished product. I've ceased working on it lately because it's not worth it. I'm going to take a few days off and see how I feel later. The colors are beautiful and the pattern is fun, but when you stretch it out over my leg, I don't like the way the pattern looks and it's already too long. I still have 8 rows to do before the heel flap. I also don't think I'd do the patterning on the foot because it looks like it would itch in a shoe, and all that work would be lost. It's starting to look like this will be ripped and abandoned.
7 TONS of top soil was dropped in our driveway yesterday. Want to know what 7 tons of soil looks like? You will, but you have to wait until I get my lazy self up and get the pics off the camera.
Putting the better part of 7 tons of soil in your garden is back breaking work. I now know this from experience.
Jaywalker the seconde is moving along nicely. It was a little slow at first, but once I jogged my memory about how to do the double decrease, things went much faster.
I have out of continent family coming stateside in exactly a week. Posting will likely get weirder and more sporadic, if you can imagine that.
This is what happens when a California mountain lion puts it's paws in wet cement. I should have put something in the picture for scale, but I didn't think of it. I was too overwhelmed by the lion tracks in a neighborhood!
I have socks at home that I finished on the way to Cali and STILL have not washed, blocked or photographed. This is not only random, but pathetic.
I never washed or blocked my purple socks. One sock is in the bedroom and one in the office. Classic.
I need to find a project other than socks to work on! I'm thinking a tank top, but I'm at a loss for yarns, for patterns, for focus. If anyone has a summer yarn they love, let me know. Something with a little give, around sport weight, though I must be crazy because I'm game for fingering weight, and something with absolutely NO wool. Also, it's got to be reasonably priced, or on sale somewhere ;)
Any cute tank top ideas to go with the yarn would begreatly appreciated. Matching the yarn to the pattern is what takes me so freaking long. That and casting on make me crazy.
Yesterday I actually caught up on all of the feeds I had from vacation! Heaven help me if I go on a vacation for more than a week.
It's mosquito season once again in MD and I'm proving no less the enticing feast that I was last year. If anyone knows of a good natural mosquito deterrent, let me know. I've been using Avon Skin so Soft repellant and sun screen, but they're still coming for me.
Below are some of the pictures I took of a rainbow that Fiance and I saw in Tennessee, I think, on the drive back. I could not stop myself from taking pictures. I thought of Sandy the whole time.
I could likely go on for days about absolutely nothing, but I won't subject to that any longer.
I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, full of good weather and lots of knitting!

There is too much brass in my living room...

2006-06-05T16:03:00.000-04:00

Saturday night Fiance and I went out to dinner with some of our friends and then we all retired to our house. Well, 3 out of 4 of us were musicians (ahem, I'll let you guess who the odd ~~man~~ woman out was) and so out came all of the instruments that Fiance and I had brought back with us from Cali. At one point three people were holding various large brass instruments, one of which almost touched the ceiling, (seen here) in my cunning shot of Fiance at work on the Soussaphone, and all I could think was that there was too much brass in my living room. Those words came out loud and my friend noted that that was not a phrase she had ever heard before, and was not likely to hear again. However, I say that if you had seen this brass and heard some of the sounds that they were making, you'd have thought the same thing. =)

Now onto actual knitting....
For your viewing pleasure I bring you one completed Jaywalker. I knit and knit on Friday, and was determined to finish this one. It seemed like the toe was taking forever, but then you get to those last few rounds and suddenly you're like the flash, and it's done. Well, all but the grafting. The grafting of those 14 or so stitches took a good half hour. It turned out pretty well, but I did what I always do and accidentally split one of the plies with my darning needle. I don't know how I manage to do this every stinking time I graft a toe, but I do. I need to learn how to not do this, because with my big, wide feet, the flat toe is incredibly more comfortable than a round or pointed toe. I'd take some advice, so long as it's not graft more loosely at first (tried that, didn't help) or pay more attention (I focused intently on not splitting it, and I still did).
So, anyhow, after I finished this Jaywalker I cast on for the second one. I would say "immediately" but that would depend on your definition of immediate. If your definition is within the next two days, then I'm good to go. This is how far I've gotten on the second sock.

Don't look at me like that. At least I cast on, twice! but we won't get into that. That's 84 freaking stitches right there, and casting on is my least favorite thing to do. Doing it twice, regardless of the stupidity behind needing to, is a monument unto itself. As long as I can get it on the ~~toothpicks~~ needles and join, and knit the correct ribbing a couple of rows, I'm good to go. The toe may have annoyed me, but I'm rather fond of the pattern, so it won't take much to get me to work on it. That is, if I can pull myself away from the other socks I'm working on....

Eastern Sock in a Western World

2006-05-31T14:13:00.000-04:00

Today, in the seemingly never ending parade of socks, I bring you my Pomatomus socks. They are from Knitty, which I would link but I think you all know what I'm talking about and the Knitty home page is acting all funny, so I'm letting it go.
Anyhow, this is more than a repeat and a half. I did one repeat successfully in the car on the way back from California, but didn't pay enough attention to that little stitch rearranging deal you do after you finish the chart. I started the second repeat, got 3 rows in, realized the mistake, tinked back, and needed a break. Okay, really I got pissed off and threw the thing in my bag, but there's no need to go into the sordid details. Alas, I was annoyed and my hands hurt from all those K2togtbl. Yeah, that gets old. And that's even coming from the girl that used to think that Ktbl was the way to knit normally. I can see why people are frequently just doing plain knits in this pattern and moving on with their lives. I don't think that it helps that this is the medium weight STR and not the light weight. Although, I suppose I might end up doing the light weight on size 1, which would probably mean that it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference, but who knows. Having never seen the light weight, I can't say what I would knit it on.
Anyhow, after doing so much on this pattern yesterday my fingers feel a little funny and my wrists are not feeling so hot. I don't think that this pattern will be going anywhere fast. While it is fun, it hurts like hell after awhile, so this might only see action once a week or so. Maybe a little more once I get down to the foot where I only have to pattern on a couple of needles. I'm starting to wish that I hadn't "sucked it up" and done the Ktbl approach, but I didn't think it was going to be such a big deal when I started, especially considering my ~~stupidity~~ learning experience in the past. I was wrong. It sucks. But, hindsight is 20/20. I sure as hell am not ripping out the hours of work I've put in so far. They will simply take me ~~much~~ longer to do. No big deal, especially since it isn't exactly sock wearing season right now (hello! 96 degrees yesterday!).

So that's the Eastern Sock bit. Now for the Western Town......

While we were in Cali I kept seeing these signs for Paramount's Western Town, so I asked the soon-to-be MIL about it. Apparently, it is the large stretch of land and buildings, owned by Paramount, and used to film any sort of western style film or tv show. The likes of Gunsmoke and Dr. Quinn have been filmed there, and from the look of some of the buildings, I think Maverick might have had a moment or two in this town, but I could be wrong. See if anything looks familiar to you....

Sock crazy

2006-05-30T13:52:00.000-04:00

I've been hard at work on my Jaywalkers, lately, and here's the evidence. I'm past the heel, on to the foot and through the gusset decreases. I started it after getting exceedingly pissed off at myself for screwing up the Pomatomus socks, while on the road back from California. I haven't turned back since (Don't worry, I didn't frog them, just put them aside).
I never thought I would have any desire to knit these after the mania that ocurred at Cara's, but I must say, there was pretty good reason for it. The pattern is simple and entertaining, and easy to pick up at any time. I've had to tink back my share of rows for forgetting to switch to a pattern or non-patterning round, but it hasn't gotten to me at all. I must say I'm surprised because that has happened a LOT. What can I say, I'm easily distracted.
One thing I must say is that I'm using Lorna's Laces and I've been really pissed off with this skein. I had to break and start about a foot further down the yarn because there was a part where all but one of the plies had been broken and were untwisting down the yarn. Now I have a nice hole where I did that and have to try to weave in the yarn to cover it. I've also found an especially large number of pills. Some of them won't even come off. When I tug at them, it becomes apparent that removing them would break one of the plies and I'd be in the same mess all over again. I'm hoping that this is just a poo poo skein and that the other one is not like this. I'd be especially aggravated if it was. The only other thing is that it might be the colorway. I don't why, but I guess it's possible, especially since I didn't have any problems with either of my Black Purl socks. Oh and that second pic there is just to show you the color better. My camera seems to have major issues with color and direct sunlight. Figure that one out!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And Now for Something Completely Different:

Here are some crazy pictures of the out of control fog at my soon to be In-Laws place in Cali. Apparently in the spring every night the fog rolls in, so when you wake up it looks like this:

And then later in the afternoon, say between 12-2, it all burns off and looks like this:

And then it all rolls back in again that evening. I had never seen anything like it!

Of Elephants and Peacocks

2006-05-24T14:22:00.000-04:00

After I landed in California, last week, Fiance took me to his parents house. At this point I had had a hideous travel experience and was both famished and tired. We decided to stop at the house, change and head out to eat. As we pulled out of the house, heading for dinner, I glazed over while looking out the window, until something caught my eye. That something was so out of place that it caused me to yell "holy $&@#, there's a peacock in the road!" It was perhaps not the best response because it freaked fiance out and caused him to slam on the brakes. And then he said, very calmly I might add, "Oh, yeah....they have them around here." Needless to say I was a little more than surprised to find out that right up the street was a park that happened to have peacocks. They are not "wild" since someone put them there, but they do quite well for themselves. They are not kept in cages or a petting zoo, but rather are allowed to roam as they please around the neighborhood. It was strange, indeed, but really fun. They aren't the sharpest birds in the world, but sure are entertaining to follow around. Here are some more pictures of the random, but beautiful, birds I met.Click for big

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yesterday, I had dinner with my Mom for Mother's Day. Yes, I know, I'm a little behind, however, considering I was in California on the actual day, I was given some leniance. =) Knowing that this dinner was coming, I managed to finish the elephant that I talked about, so long ago. It took a LOT longer than I had anticipated, more than twice the time that LMKG seems to thinks it should. I knew it was going to take me a little longer, but the amount of time it acutally took was insane. I'm thinking over 20 hours here. Some of it had to do with the yarn, some with making it bigger, and some with me never having made a knitted stuffed before. Could I do it again, but faster? Yes. Will I? Likely not.

Yarn: 2 blobs of Belleza Collection: Dolcetto from Joann's (best color pic here), a bit of pink Shine Sport left over fromt he Intarsia baby blanket, and leftover Cascade 220 from a scarf.
Needles: US 6 16" and 24" circs and set of 5 dpns
Gauge: Forgot to measure
Pattern: Elephant from Last Minute Knitted Gifts
Measurements: About 16" tall and 7" wide without ears at full extension
Notes: I made about every change I could to this pattern. I used a bulky yarn instead of 2 sport weight strands held together (except where I used pink "Shine sport" to make the tip of the nose, I made it about 150% bigger than intended by casting on more stitches and knitting more rounds (time consuming), I made it a "him" instead of a "her" by using blue Cascade 220 to make the scarf, I did extra decreases for the neck, and extra increases and decreases for the ears. I'm sure the list is even longer, but I can't remember all of them =)
The pattern was pretty cool, though, except for being a little small. Most toys I've seen have ALL the peices knit flat and then sewn on, whereas the arms and legs are knit flat, and then the legs are joined by using 2 circs and knit together to make the body. This reduced some of the seams and sewing, but I managed to make up for that by having to sew extra on the ears that I made too big and floppy. Ooops.
Either way, "he" turned out well and my Mom couldn't believe that I made him. A fellow knitter could have noticed, but for a first try, he looked pretty good.

Exciting News!

2006-05-22T13:35:00.000-04:00

I am back, lovely readers and I have some very exciting news! See this gorgeous rock?? That beautiful ring came from Boyfriend, who has been upgraded to Fiance! That's right! He proposed and I said yes! Despite the fact that most of the English speaking world had been consulted on the proposal and ring, I was completely surprised when he got down on one knee at the Grand Canyon! It was adorable and I was totally shocked. This is the spot that we overlooked when he popped the question. I love these two rocks because they look like bird baths. I wanted to climb down there and put some water in them, but it was
a) a poorly planned idea since I don't rock climb
and
b) I was shaking from surprise and excitement.

Maybe some day in the future. =)

After we had both calmed down, we looked over and there was another couple hanging out on our little over look with a little friend.

This little gray guy had come up to this gentleman who had been eating and hit him up for some Lays potato chips. He couldn't have just one either. He crawled up in the guys lap and starting munching away. The guy would give him a little peice of chip right to his mouth and he would take it and then hold it in his little hands and munch it until it was gone. It was absolutely nuts. No pun intended.

Here's a close up of him reaching up for the bag that Fiance was holding in his hands. It was crazy. He had absolutely no fear of humans at all.

And lastly (for today, that is), here are some more shots of the gorgeous landscape of the Grand Canyon. Please brace yourself for some very picture intense posts in the next few days. There will be lots of knitting photos too. Just check my side bar and you'll see all kinds of surprises! Visual updates are on the way.

Also, I would like to know which of you conspired to make my news gator feeds explode. I logged on to over 400 new feeds. You people sure are busy! I'll be trying to catch up with everyone this week, and next, so if you get a comment from some archived post, it's just little ole me trying to catch up with the cool kids. ;)

Aquisitions Dept.

2006-05-11T12:33:00.000-04:00

My apologies for the delay in getting this posted. I've had nothing but trouble convincing Blogger to upload the pictures. It would work and then quit and work and quit, and I think I finally got them all in!

Here we are, a post full of yorn! I went to post this yesterday and couldn't convince blogger to upload the photos, and a post about yarn with no pictures is pointless, so I threw in the towel.

Here is my first yarn. It's a Tess' Design sock yarn. The color wasn't true on the camera monitor, but it is on this computer screen. It's a nice deep, solid blue.
I had it in my mind that I needed to buy a bunch of solid colored yarn because I'm not big on lacey/cabley patterning on variegated yarn. Ofcourse, this was the only solid yarn I could manage to buy. That's what happens what you're a color addict.

Next up we have this Merino from Tess' as well. It's between 500-600 yards and the color looks much darker on my monitor. It's kind of a crappy shot, but I don't think it will ever show up right because the variegation is so subtle. It's green to blue and I love it! It's soft, there's a ton of yardage, and the colors are gorgeous. Plus the price was right ;) I'm intending to make it a shrug, but I have a very specific design I want to do, and since I don't have a lot of experience in this department, I think I'm going to try another shrug pattern with a different yarn, and see what I learn. Then I will tackle this one

Here we have some Lorna's Laces. I am very fond of this yarn and had to practically fight Heather for this colorway. We could only find three skeins of it. I think it's called Vera. I'm thinking about making the pomatomus socks with it, but I want to look around and see if anyone made those out of Lornas and see how the striping/pooling worked out for them.

And lastly, here is my STR! As Heather mentioned, getting just these skeins was a small nightmare. There were people everywhere and they were not polite in any way. Pushing, shoving, the works. I am happy with these colors, though. The green will likely be the emobossed leaves from IW and I have no plans for the other color. Sorry, I was too silly to look at the color names for any of these skeins. When I finally knit them up, I'll tell you what they are.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Boyfriend and I are driving cross country next week, so I will be out until next weekend. I hope everyone his nice week and weekend(s). I'll take lots of blurry pictures of the countryside for you =) and promise not to post them all. I hope to have lots of knitting progress to show when I return since I'll be sitting in the car/plane/airport for long periods of time.

It should be interesting, but I'm not looking forward to seeing my newsgator feeds when I get back!

The garden

2006-05-11T12:04:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to put some of my flower shots up in a separate post. So here it is. Yorn and such to follow....

This is a close up of the flowers that have exploded from my thyme plant. These little pods showed up and I thought they were the flowers, and then they got all brown a couple of days later, and I thought "that was fast!" Then about a week later these purple flowers came out of the pods. It's almost how a salvia explodes. You think they're dead and then they pop out of the pods. Very cool.

This is one of the roses that Boyfriend left on my desk. You can really tell here that it's a double flowering rose. It's kind of neat to see like that, but it's not my favorite when it opens. The rest of the roses we have are single flowering.

One of the roses when it's completely open. Once they get to this point, they quickly decline. The head drops from all of the weight and the bloom goes brown. It happens in a matter of a day or so. At this point they smell amazing, though, and even once the are at the end and I dead head them, I can take them and dry them and they retain their gorgeous scent. If I could get it together enough, I could make a spectacular potpourri.

Sheepities

2006-05-09T13:49:00.000-04:00

As the weather has been rather gloomy since I got out of a concert on Sunday afternoon, I haven't been able to take pics of my MD S&W aquisitions. The weather has just cleared up, so I can get you some "yorn" soon. I got some STR and some Tess'. Most aquisitions are going to be socks one day, but I did get some for a ballet style shrug for when my office turns into the meat locker (sorry sheep!)
Until then I will distract you with some photogenic fur producers.

Impending knitting content: 1 yarrow rib sock completed and kitchenered(!) and the cuff of the second half way done, and more knit tonight. (I hope)

This gal has an eye on ewe.
Omg that was awful! I'm so sorry. Feel free to groan.

There were loads of lamby-kins and I wanted to cuddle all of them. Sadly they look down on this at the festival unless you intend to buy.
Hrm, this black sheep is giving me the same stare I alwatys get from Jordan. Somehow I doubt she wants a milkbone.

Look at the horns on this guy! This is a Jacob sheep. Apparently this breed goes back to biblical times and hasn't really been altered since. They can have 2, 4 or 6 horns! We didn't see any with 6, but I would love to.

The wrinkly nose makes me giggle. These sheep look so tired all the time.

This is an Angora bunny. I think I have dust bunnies floating around the house that might be this big. Too bad I can't make yarn from them. I'd make millions! Okay, thousands...

Just kidding around. Some kids playing and eating. They were adorable and cheap. Boyfriend should thank his lucky stars we're not zoned for live stock.

Here's another good reason. Alpacas are so dman cute. Where's the next alpaca fest?

Things that make you hrm....and ew! all in the same breath.

Still Here

2006-05-04T16:55:00.000-04:00

I know that it seems like I have fallen off the face of the planet, but it's not true. I am here, but I have been very busy. I usually have a spare moment or two to myself at work to blog, but I have not been afforded that time lately. I've also been a grumpy so and so lately, but today it's just so darn lovely outside, there's no way I could be down. It's a gorgeous day, and my mood is looking up.
And so I present you a mostly done Vesper sock. I turned the heel, and have completed the decreases on the foot. It fits like a dream. I had to turn the heel twice because of what looks to be a mistake in the heel. Every other heel in the book has you knit or purl one stitch after you SSK or P2tog, but this heel doesn't. What you're left with is the same shaping, but there are holes. Bad holes. That really grumped me out. So I ripped it out and did it again using other directions. This time no holes, and a happy Jes.
This baby should be done in time for MDS&W. I can't wait! I'll be happy to finish one and rewind the ball. I want to see how much is left after making a whole sock. I know it's plenty and I know that the ball will be a little smaller (read more portable) when I rewind it.

And since you know there's no way I could get through a post without showing a little plant or two, so here ya go. This is one of my wee tomato plants (that I clearly started too late! but oh well). I'm so proud, though, because it's getting real leaves. Several of the other tomato plants are getting leaves, and another Brandywine tomato even decided to germinate and poke it's head out. I don't know that it will do all that well, but it sure was funny to see a latecomer popping up. The peppers are getting ready to bust out, and if I see roots poking out, they'll get a transplant, but otherwise they're stuck in the flat until I see new leaves on them too.

And finally, to show you how adorable Boyfriend is, this is what I found on my keyboard last night after a long, long day.It's one of the first roses off the season off of our out of control tea rose. This plant is gorgeous, but it's a mammoth, and at least 6 ft. already. The flowers on it are beautiful and fragrant, and come all season long. I can't tell you how wonderful this little rose smelled.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! I'll post an update after MD S&W. =)

Proof

2006-04-28T15:07:00.000-04:00

I do knit. You wouldn't know it from this blog lately, but I do. See? This is (still) the leg of the first sock. I've been working on it exclusively all week, with what little time I've had. I've decided that I can go another inch or so before starting the heel flap without constricting my calves too much. The change in pattern is really helping with the overall sizing, and I'm really liking the ribbing pattern. Just enough purls to make it interesting, but not so many you slow down to an absolute crawl. I do still have to throw when I use dpns, so I'm already going slower than I normally would, but I must say that I'm surprised I've gotten this far down the leg so fast, especially with all the set backs. This Vesper yarn is a bit thicker than the Lorna's and I must say, I really like that. It's a little itty bit scratchy right now, but I think some Euclan will soften it right up. Plus, despite this horrid picture, the colors are just so great. They keep my eyes entertained, and the striping pattern is about 4-5 stitches wide, so just about the time you're tired of the color, a new one appears and that means you've gone about a little less than half an inch. I do about 4 stripes a night, so I feel like I'm flying. If I could ever catch more Vesper when it's online, I would totally order more. However, with the Sheep and Wool festival a little more than a week away, I'm trying to practice some self restraint. I have some sock yarn money put away and Heather and I are bolting straight to the Socks that Rock!

And because I simply couldn't resist some more garden pictures, here they are below.
Have a great weekend!These are called Chicks and Hens. Forgive me, I'm not into the latin names. Anyhow, these guys were fighting some mint for control over this cement planter when we bought the house. I didn't even think anything was in this planter at first. So I ripped out the moss and the mint and the next thing I knew, these guys were sprouting up. Now they're all over the planter and they rule their roost!Here's a wide shot of the seedlings. I've had to increase the real estate that's close to the light. I see now why they make those light stands with the chains. Much easier to raise and lower the light than the plants. The paper pots are all the plants I repotted who were out growing the flat. More can come out, but they're not dying to yet, so I left them. That way they're warmer because of how they sit on the heating pad that's under the blue towel.

And lastly, a close up of the flat. Peppers on the back left, 7 million dollar flowers back right, Brandywine tomatoes close left, one freaky growing tomatillo and the couple of Romas that weren't ready to repot close right. All the cherry tomatoes and most Romas and the one tomatillo got repotted. None of the other zucchinis came up at all. I actually dug some of the seeds out to see what happened, and no one else germinated. I'm going to take a stab at it again soon and plant the ones that germinate, right into their mound. Ofcourse none of them could match the craziness of the super zucchini.

Strangely similar

2006-04-25T14:20:00.000-04:00

Looking at this picture might give you a sense of deja vu. Like you've seen it somewhere before. Like it doesn't look any different than it did the last time, except..... What is it that's wrong? Is it the striping that's changed, the ribbing, the entire pattern, perhaps? Yeah, it's that last one. Despite having gotten through the first 3 inches or so of the madder rib, it had to be ripped. I kept trying it on, and looking at it, and it just didn't seem right. Despite going over my foot quite nicely, and over my heel well - as well as can be expected when there are three pointy sticks in it - it just didn't work on my ~~fat~~ shapely calves. It's not that it didn't stretch enough, I was able to pull them up and over, but the pattern got all stretched out, and it was not flattering. Yeah, it's the bit that's going to be hidden, but it looked terrible, and I just couldn't live with it. I considered my options
a) suck it up, make the sock, lose weight, deal.
b) suck it up and make the sock for someone with daintier calves
c) rip it out and throw the yarn out the window
d) rip it out and start again with an extra pattern repeat (bringing total sts to 70 AKA too many)
e) rip it out and add 1 k st to all the wide ribs (bringing total sts to 67 but screwing up pattern)
f) rip it out, start again with larger needles, hate the fabric it makes, rip it out again, go back to size 1s, pick a different pattern, knit that, take picture, blog about it. Be happy(er).

I think you know what I did. This is the yarrow ribbed pattern, btw. It has 66 sts instead of 60, which works out better all the way around.

And now to distract you from my total lack of forward progress on any thing knit, I present to you some preformance art that happens in our house daily. I give you:

Cat lounging in a bath tub

Fuzzy picture due to cat's complete inabilty to hold still for more than a milisecond, except while being cute (which only happens while sleeping) and you don't have your camera.

Quick! Look! Knitting!

2006-04-21T16:02:00.000-04:00

I know, I know, it's a major surprise. No one have a heart attack, okay?
I have been knitting, but it's been boring and slow, and not very interesting to blog about, but this is actually interesting. It's my replacement sock for the toe up drama babies. I ripped the needles out of that puppy, paged through my Knitting Vintage Socks, and decided on the Madder Ribbed. Here you see the cuff and the first few rows of the leg. I'm so very happy now. I love the colors, I love the one less needle, I love the pattern. The only alterations I will make are to add more stitches to the feet and to change it to a flat toe instead of a gathered one. I've even decided to do this on 1s and knit looser. That should make Lady Deb happy. ;) Doing it is actually taking some restraint not to yank on the yarn constantly, but my hands are much happier.

The yarn, in case you're wondering, is Vesper - color knit and tonic. I should have divided it into two balls, one for each sock, but I've decided that at 440 yards, the chances of me running out of yarn are almost non existent. It's equivalent to the Lorna's Laces yardage and I have a ton of that leftover, so it's all good. Also, I have no scale or yarn meter to do such dividing, so it's a moot point anyhow. Just to show you the magnitude of this yarn, here's the full hank wound next to one hank of koigu. That's a lotta' yarn!

Back to the drawing board

2006-04-19T16:22:00.000-04:00

Things have been quite busy with me lately, especially with the gardening stuff. I'm happy to report that there are TWO peppers popping up out of the ground, and hopefully more on the way. The pictures in this post are sadly non knitting related, and I'll tell you why.
A couple of nights ago I wound my second ball of Koigu and set to work on the Figure 8 cast on, on my new Brittany Birch needles. I had some problems casting on, serious problems. I tried three or four times and I just gave up. It was totally frustrating and I just didn't care anymore. I decided to try on the other sock again and see how it felt, to make sure that it really didn't fit. Yeah, it doesn't. It's too tight, it's to short, it just stinks. And you know what? I don't even like the toe. After all the changes I made, it just isn't comfortable. It really has nothing to do with being the figure-8 versus the turkish, it's the entire shape of the toe. I'm coming to realize that I have some big ol' feet. The toes are wide, the ball of the foot is wide, and the foot is long. So, I've decided, I'm ripping out the first foot, and I'm going go to a top down. Likely a Nancy Bush pattern, because the first socks I did were hers, and I loved it, and I had very few problems. The only thing I want to research are some top down toes. I need to look at some kitchenered toes so that I have more fabric across the top for my wide tootsies. So, anyhow, it's back to the drawing board!

Gardening:

How to make a compost tea brewer

The same night I took another stab at the sock, I had already created this little brewing contraption. It's dead easy to make, as long as you can figure out the pictures on the aquarium peices. I had some issues, but that is likely, not normal. Not much about me is.

Anyhow, you start with a 5 gallon bucket with water. I chose not to fill mine all the way because I only needed it for my seedlings.

Then get yourself an aquarium bubbler and a gang valve, and some tubing. It helps if you have any idea how this stuff is supposed to work in the first place. I have ritually avoided having fish that need anything other than some food and a water change now and again, so I didn't have a clue - hence the mess and directions everywhere.

Hook all your peices together and dump them in the bucket. Intrigued dog not required, but highly entertaining.
Then realize that the tubing is silicone and that it floats. Consider myriad of odd objects to weigh them down. Try using tupperware, only to come to the realization that it is plastic and plastic floats. Consider how dumb it was to try plastic in the first place. Hope that it's just due to lack of sleep and go back to kitchen for naturally denser object. Retrieve heavy glass and be satisified with the result.
The last thing that I didn't show was the bucket with the compost. I dumped it in there and the water went all brown. Not exactly interesting to look at. The misture should be a 4:1 water:compost ratio - normally 4 gallons of water to 1 gallon of compost.
The mixture is supposed to "brew" (note the water is not hot or anything - in fact I used cold water, and since it was straight from the sink I let it bubble without compost for an hour to decholrinate) for 2-3 days. The purpose of this is to activate the micro-organisms in the compost and to make your plants happy with the fertilizer. The compost tea is a manner of quickly feeding the plants and it's a fertilizer that is organic and can be added to the soil or sprayed on the foliage. There is no risk of burning your plants with the tea the way you can with chemical fertilizers.

I was inspired to make this because of something I read. I had always considered it, but reading about the fact that since my seed starting mixture was soilless, it was therefore nutrient-less, put me over. I realized that it's possible that the remaining zuc and pepper plants hadn't come up because they ran out of steam on the way. Even though the mixture wasn't ready yesterday, I still took some and put it on everyone. I'm thinking I will do this again tonight and spray the foliage as well. I'm a little late starting everyone, and they have a long way to go to be big enough to put outside (well all except the wonder zucchini). I'm sort of thinking that my mixture doesn't look like many organisms got activated. It's not bubbling and thick the way it is on the pictures I saw. I did put sugar into the mixture, the way you would to activate bread yeast, and the web site recommended unsulphured molasses. I don't think that's a very big deal, but it might not have been wise to use rather cold water. Either way, I'm sure that the dissolved compost is better than nothing. I sure did learn plenty from the experiment, and that's all that matters at this point. Any fruit that produces off of any of the plants will make me as happy and as proud as can be. I'm already over the top that anyone came out to play in the first place. =)

Oh, and here is Jordan, baby-sitting the mixture. I'm not sure if she was upset because I used a bathroom mat, that used to be hers, under the mixture to protect the floor, or if she was somehow soothed by the bubbling water, but everytime I open the door to the room, she goes in and lays next to the bucket - well after she gets all her sniffing in, anyhow.

Under achiever and Over acheiver

2006-04-17T14:45:00.000-04:00

The under acheiver: me
This is the garter stitch blanket that I've been working on. It's my mindless knitting. Sadly, it's been about all I can handle lately. I'm working it continental style, which I really needed for awhile after I knit that first toe up sock in about three days. You know, the sock that I screwed up the heel on, and haven't touched since? Yeah, that one. So, in lieu of having the mental energy to start the second sock so I could get the heel right on that one, I've been working on this. I think it's around 150 stitches across on US 5. It's not huge, but it's a nice size for a preemie or newborn, which is who it's planned for. I've planned it to be yellow blue yellow and I've started the blue stripe in the middle. I've only done 2 rows of the blue so far because the neighbors were having a crazy party and I couldn't take the noise of the window rattling from their bass and longer. I'm sure I'll be working on this a lot, especially considering how much work I've been doing and will be doing in the garden, and how tired it's making me. I also wouldn't be surprised if when I'm done this, I start another. It might just be the summer of the blanket.

The over acheiver: the plant
This not so little anymore zucchini plant is crazy. It popped up out of the ground only 3 days after it was planted, and by two days lafter that I had to prop up the lid to the container because it was touching it. I had to run out and get transplanting supplies so that I could get it out of there. So I got some soil and a 3" peice of PVC coupling and made some paper planters for them. These are the only over acheivers who have warranted a transplant. This plant is around 5" tall now, and none of the other zucchini seeds (of which there are 2 in each pot) have even surfaced yet. Neither have any of the pepper plants. I've still got hope and fingers and toes crossed for them. I figure I'm okay with only one zuc since they say if you're going to have a zucchini plant, you'd better have friends.... but I really have hopes for the peppers. I love to eat peppers, and I'd be sad to be without them. At least I still have time to break down and buy them at the nursery if none of these 8(!) come up.
Anyhow, everybody else looks like this, quite a contrast, but they're all growing in proportion to their seeds. And it doesn't matter anyhow, cuz they're so darn cute!

Overnight Success...almost

2006-04-12T15:34:00.000-04:00

Okay, to start I just want to check that I'm not boring you with all my gardening stuff. It is sort of consuming my life right now, and by nature, the blog as well. I am going to try to make it clear about which part is gardening and which is knitting so you're not reading some intense horticultural post when you don't give a flying you know what....
Anyhow, this is about gardening and below is about knitting.

Yesterday, I went into check on the ol' seeds after taking a two hour nap that I apparently didn't know I needed, and I spotted these guys. I only planted these babies on Sunday, and look how big they were this morning. It's amazing to me, since the earliest anyone was supposed to show their face was after ten days or so. I suppose that 10-14 day timeline means until everyone is up and running, not just sprouting up.

The picture on the left is zucchini which is why they are so huge. Those seeds are large and in charge, but I still planted two per pint. Ofcourse there are two coming up in one pint and none in the others, but I'm not worried. The picture on the right is a roma tomato that wasn't there last night and literally sprouted above the dirt and this tall overnight. There are two cherry tomatoes coming up too, but they pretty much look like the roma. It not seem like a big deal but a tomato seed is about the size of a small sesame seed, so they have a long ways to go.
I really can't express how excited I was to see these guys popping up. Literally, jumping up and down, yelling, and doing the happy dance. Think the feeling that you get when you were sure you were going to run out of that discontinued yarn in the rare colorway that has marinated in the stash for years - waiting for the perfect pattern you just found - that no one has any left overs of and you were sure you were going to run out of, but finish the sweater with only a few yards to spare. It's that kind of success for me. And as soon as at least one of every kind of plant in there makes its debut I will feel the relief that you get after you have seemed and blocked and gifted or worn said beautiful sweater =)

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*KNITTING CONTENT BELOW~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Today I made a trip over to ye olde local yarn store to browse and pick up some more needles. I was willing to take any of the kinds of needles that I don't have to finish any of the projects that are lying around the house unfinished. Now, I like my yarn store, she has a good selection, a nice space, a fairly friendly atmosphere, but the needle selection makes me sad. I know that most people would be elated to see rows and rows of brittany and addi on the shelves in every length and size, but it annoys me. Alright, I'm coming out and saying it, I hate Addi's. Both kinds. The nickel ones are too blunt, they hurt my hands, and no matter what I'm working on, are too slippery. The Natura ones are okay, but the join is hateful. I have tried knitting with worsted and with fingering on my only pair of 5s and every yarn I've tried gets stuck in that join. I know many of you like them, and to each his own, but I can't stand them. Maybe someday I'll change my tune, but for now, I'm sticking by my Crystal Palace. All shapes, all sizes, all lengths. Mwah.
ANYHOW....rant over. As I didn't manage to be able to find any of the circs I needed to finish elephant or to do turkish cast on, I hunted through the dpns. I grabbed a set of brittany birch 5" size 1s. I've decided that to separate myself from the angstd that I feel for the sock that is too short with the heel I care not to knit again, so I'm going to start on the new skein and work the foot and try another heel. By the time I finish that sock, I will be over my pain and anger ~~mostly~~ and won't feel as bad about ripping out the heel and knitting just a little bit longer a foot. My plan is to use the short row YO heel as seen here and as advised by my sock queen. It boggles my mind slightly just from looking at the pictures, but new things always do. This is why I have the one new thing at a time rule. I can multi-task a lot of things, but learning is not one of those things. So, when I get to the ~~hell~~ heel, which won't be for awhile, I will sit me down in front of the computer and figure it out. For now, I'm pretending like there is no heel, in order to release some stress I have related to this little pockety goodness.
So, soon, some pictures of the other sock, and of the garter stitch blanket that I'm working on - you know for the slow mental days, and the hat I never blogged, and so forth. Until then, I will be knitting in the times that I can tear myself away from watching the ~~flowers~~ vegetables grow.

A little bit frustrated...

2006-04-11T16:08:00.000-04:00

Point 1:
Yesterday was the first warm day we've had in awhile and I was excited to get home and get some weeding done. I've needed to get my lettuce and bean bed planted for a week or so now and I've gotten nowhere. So last night I took myself out there and ripped up a 5 gallon bucket chcked full of spring onions that had somehow over run this bed in a matter of a year. Last year I don't recall there being much of anything in the bed before I planted flowers, and this year they are suddenly the masters of they survey. But no more. However, this bed is under a large tree and everywhere I hacked to get the onions out I hit tree root. Now this tree isn't doing so hot as it is, so I feel compelled to not rip up all it's little roots just to get spring onions out and lettuce in. So, after working for 2 straight hours on weeding, I decided that I needed to build a raised bed. Yes, I'm glad I got the weeding done, but it's a little annoying.

Point 2:
This sock that is going to drive me to drink....more. It's the Wendy's generic toe up pattern...sorta. I've had to increase the needle size to 1 (she says 0) add 4 more stitches to make 68 (her plans 60 and 64) and decided to use the figure 8 cast on instead of the short row toe. I liked the look of the short row, but I had all those issues with the purl and the knit wraps. Ofcourse I come to find out that I was a) knitting the wraps wrongly and b) didn't have to knit them at all. Also frustrating.

Point 3:
Okay it's still the sock, but it's a different problem. I was doing fine until I got to the heel directions. With some help from Deb, I found a bunch of other options, but got a little overwhelmed and decided to just give the short row heel by Wendy a try. I found that I didn't have to knit the wraps, and that helped a lot. Even knitting the wraps the right way left me with a hole, so I fixed them and moved on. Last night I put the sock on, seen here, and found that the length of the foot is just a hair too short to be comfortable. Now I have to either rip and reknit or hope that blocking helps. Well, you know me, I won't leave it and have to rip it . However, I'm going to give another heel a try. I don't mind making short rows in the least, but when you have a large number of stitches on one needle, say 34 or so, it becomes very uncomfortable to knit. It's not the end of the world, just frustrating.

Point 4:
I cannot for the life of me get a good picture of this sock color. Natural light, flash, no light - nothing works. You guessed it - frustrating.

Point 5:
Not having enough of the right size needles to do the Turkish cast on for the sock (hence the figure 8 instead) or to work on my elephant for my mom, and....

Point 6:
The yarn store is closed on Tuesdays! Ahhhhhhhhhh!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, I'm done whining. So I leave you with two semi-decent shots. They are of my rosemary plant that made it through the winter, much to my surprise. Not only did it make it, it flowered! I had no idea they flowered ever, but they do with these cute little purple flowers. I'm not sure if it affects the flavor of the leaves in the way that bolting does on basil and lettuce, but even if it does, I'm okay with it. This and the thyme made it through a winter where they should have perished forever, so no matter how they taste, they are winners in my book!

Some Assembly Required

2006-04-10T15:56:00.000-04:00

So yesterday I finally felt well enough (after 4 days of being very sick) to plant my little seeds. So I layed out my labels and my seeds...

Then I stuck my little peat tablets in the flats, like so. These things are really awesome. Just add water and they spring up like crazy. I really thought it would take longer and more water, but I was very, very wrong. You see, I hadn't figured out how many of the tablets I was going to use yet and I only filled the first flat with water.....but they are all attached and all sitting in the same drainage bin. And, well, the water drained into the bin and some of the other pellets got wet from underneath, and my flat looked like this, when I had only put water in that first section. The first section, however looked lovely, like this:

So, after I got the peat all squished into the pots
I put two seeds into each hole in hopes that at least one of them makes it out of the pair. I did this with all of them except the peppers because Thomas Morgan was really stingy on the seeds there. I literally only got 8 seeds total. Everything else seemed like a decent amount but those. However, what is nice is that within the paper package, Thomas Morgan has another foil wrapped package. Like those ones that hold the seasoning inside Ramen noodles. Don't look at me like that, I know that you were starving once too and ate Ramen Noodles! (or some equivalent paper flavored noodle) Some of us theatre folk have even gotten a little too creative with them. Ahem. Moving on...
So here is my pretty flat all planted. Okay, well, almost. I got it all planted and re-watered, covered and situated, and hiked it upstairs trying, for once, not to trip over my own feet, and I got it all settled and realized that I hadn't planted the 7 million dollar flowers. So, I hiked it back downstairs and planted those.
They were the tiniest seeds ever. It was like trying to plant poppy seeds only they were pointy, and not as dark, which made them harder to see. So I sprinkled some over the holes and I hope they work out. I also hope I didn't get any on the other plants. The last thing I need is million dollar purple flowers growing out of my tomato plants.

Now finally everything is upstairs and in its little home under its radioactive light. The cover will stay on until they begin to emerge. It's supposed to, and I hope it works out this way, all happen at once based on the germination times. The flowers might be a little behind, so I'm going to have to work something out there. The big flat is nice to keep them all together, but not helpful at starting seeds with differing lengths of germination. The new wee plants need the air circulation and the germinating ones need the humid conditions. I forsee some strategically placed seran wrap in their future.
In the mean time they will sit on the heating pad (still trying to work out the correct number of towels between the heater and the plants to get the temp right. It was awfully warm this morning, and I hope I didn't cook them!), under their 16 hour timered light and with my hopes that at least one of these little guys comes up.

2006-04-05T15:25:00.000-04:00

Before I get started I wanted to thank everyone for their kind comments and help on my Oak ribbed socks and my weirdo toe issue. My plan is to frog the toe and move on with my life. Turkish cast on - here I come!

End of knitting content! You have been warned!

What you see here is my newly built grow light system. Last night I went to Home Depot and found this "plant" light for my grow light. I originally had bought two clip lights and some flourescent light bulbs to put in them, but started to doubt myself after the 55th time boyfriend said "are you sure that will work?" Since the bulbs didn't say "plant" or "grow" anywhere on them, I decided to hunt a little more. I found this kit amongst the other flourescent lights - that being nowhere near the nursery. Go figure.
However, the kit only contained the fixture and the bulb, no frame or thing to attach to. When I got home, I showed this to boyfriend and he kindly, and quickly I might add, rigged this little baby up for me. Isn't that sweet? What I was thinking was far more complex and too cumbersome, plus I was (and still am) icky sicky, so I wasn't going to get it done anytime soon. Now it is all done, and all I need to do is plant. Which is what that thing underneath is for. It's a 72 plant flat with a little peat moss disc in each cup. All you do is soak the disc in some water and it expands to fit the cup. Simply make a little hole, with say a pencil, and put the seed, or two, in and cover. Cover the flat loosely, turn on the light (with the timer to keep it on 16 hours a day - also purchased at Home Depot) and you're done until they sprout. Just keep them watered.

So what am I planting you ask? Well have a looksee <------------ Those are almost all the seeds that I bought. I picked up two more packets last night of ones I couldn't find at the nursery. Two cucumbers, one pickle and one slicing. In the picture we have (starting from the top left) zucchini, cherry tomatoes(sugar golds), Brandywine Heirloom tomatoes, Unicorn hybrid sweet peppers, tomatillos (which I know nothing about). Second row starting at the left: Masterpeice cucumbers - which I may not plant because I got the bush variety that I wanted and these might be vines, romano tomatoes, Sugar pod peas, Tyee spinach, Olympia Spinach and buttercrunch lettuce.

And then there's these flowers. Boyfriend came with me to the nursery, and he can be dangerous there since he likes his lawn and he likes his gadgets, however, he spotted these flowers that he liked and and gave them to me. The observant among you will notice that these seeds say FREE! They were supposed to be free with the purchase of 2 Thompson & Morgan seeds, which I bought, and when we got to the register I somehow owed over $8,000,000. Do not adjust your monitor, that is the actual amount. Apparently my FREE! seeds cost over 7 million dollars. Quite a deal, dontcha' think?

Anywho, I know this seems like an insane amount of crops, but it's not as bad as it looks when you realize that the peas, lettuce and spinach are cold weather crops that I should have put in the garden last weekend(oops), and the lettuce/spinach is one head per seed. You have to keep planting lettuce to keep growing it (except looseleaf varieties, of which I have none). I'm also planning on making tomato paste and crushed tomatoes to can, hence the large amount of crops there. I think most of these are indeterminate (meaning they keep producing until the weather changes - as opposed to determinate which produces a crop once a plant, once a season, all at once) which will make canning both harder and easier. I won't be able to bushels at a time, but we're talking about a small kitchen a probably canning 7 quarts at a time. There's no factory capability here ;) So indeterminate might keep me sane (er).

So that's where my gardening sits. I'm splitting my time between gardening and knitting lately so the knitting is slow, but both are keeping me equally sane. Well....at least out of the crazy house, that is.

If you got this far, thanks for reading! =) Have a Happy Wednesday!

What's going on here?

2006-04-04T14:52:00.000-04:00

So I started a toe up sock with Wendy's Generic toe up pattern with some Koigu that I ordered awhile ago. With Koigu's limited yardage, and my large feet, I decided it would be a good opportunity to learn a toe up pattern. I also figured that since it's Koigu KPPM that it would be a good reason to just do some simple stockinette socks to ease my mind after running around like an idiot spring cleaning the house and the garden, and planting like a maniac.
So I began on Sunday and after having some issues with the crochet chain provisional cast on and having to redo it three times, I got it rolling, and I was good to go. (Note to self: if you crochet the chain backwards by pulling the yarn to the other side of the hook when you pull it through the loop, it will not unzip. Ooops). I figured out the short row shaping thing after watching Heather struggle with it on her purse, and I didn't have any problems until I went to do the other half of the toe. The first half is just wrapped short rows, which now make sense to me, but the other half was double wrapped rows and involved including the wraps and the stitch and k3tog. I understand this and didn't have any problems on the knit side as you can see above. It's a little choppy (and a crappy picture. Daylight savings ruined my morning light), but I think for a first try it looks good. But when you look at the other side (this picture) of the toe where it was P3tog, it looks like poo. I guess I'm just not sure how you P3tog with the wraps. I'm able to put my needle in the wraps from the left side then up through the stitch when I knit, and get the yarn through, and it looks fine. However, when I do the purl I have to lift the wraps up onto the left needle in order to convince the yarn through. I think this might have been what made those little bumps there, but I can't figure out another way to do it. I can't insert my needle from the left or the right through the wraps then through the stitch and pull the yarn through all three peices. I thought about using my current nemesis the crochet hook, but at the time, I didn't realize that what I was doing was creating these bumps, so I didn't look for an alternative.
So at this point, I'm at a loss for what to do. I'm totally willing to frog this little bit of a toe, especially since it's got its fill of mistakes - not big ones, mind you, but together they make a bit of a mess - but I'm not sure that I'd be able to fix these bumps by simply doing it over. I need another plan of attack. So, what do you think? How can I fix this mess without trying a different sort of toe? I like the shape of this toe and what little there is feels good, but this wrapped short row thing is kicking my butt.

Oh, and if anyone is interested, these pics and article at knitty are really helpful, but they don't explain how to do the purl side of the short rows. It does clear up the toe up stuff. Just note that the amount of sts she uses in the article are for demonstration and not necessarily to size.

FO: Oak ribbed socks

2006-03-30T16:13:00.000-05:00

FOR DEB: JUST SAYIN' ;)

Yarn: 2 skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Black Purl
Needles: US 2 set of 5 (but I only used 4) dpns - Crystal Palace
Gauge: Ummmm....I know it's bad for a sock, but I don't know
Pattern: Oak Ribbed from Knitting Vingtage Socks by Nancy Bush
Measurements: Size 9 feet according to pattern (with some adjustments)
Notes: I did everything according to plan except I made the heel flap two rows longer which led to me picking up 18 stitches instead of 16. I didn't decrease those extra stitches until the toe. I also accidentally started the toe a half inch later than I was supposed to, so I shortened the space between decreases. I also managed to pick up 19 stitches on the other sock, but I decreased them out. I have no idea why, but it works.
My only complaint is that when I picked up stitches there is a little hole on both sides right under the ankle at the join. I'm not sure if it's because of the way I picked up, the way I knitted the flap or the size of the needles, but it's slightly annoying. But only slightly - as in not enough to rip out and try again. Hopefully I can just fix it on the next socks.
Oh and I made exactly no attempt to match up the yarn. You can't really tell except for the enormous stripe on the top and bottom of both feet that are opposing colors. And you know what? I don't care. In fact, I love it. =)

More, less good pictures, for your viewing enjoyment.

Elephant peices and parts

2006-03-29T14:14:00.000-05:00

Today, I bring you the very beginnings of the elephant that I'm knitting for my mom. Yes, I know it seems strange to knit a toy for an adult, however, it makes sense. I promise. You see, my mom loves elephants. Ever since I could remember, a large photo of elephants graced her bedroom wall and the house was brimming over with beautiful elephant figures. Ones of glass, of stone, of clay, of crystal. Little ones, big ones, ones with babies, ones that were actually tea pots. Tea pots are another thing that mom collects, but I choose not to combine two things she loves by knitting an elephant tea cozy. I have to draw the line somewhere.
So what you're seeing is the two arms and the beginning of the leg. The arms worked out perfectly in width, and I just had to keep going until the length was proportionate. You see the LMKG pattern says to use sport weight doubled, and I say why make my life harder? I prefer to work with a single yarn so as to not confuse my already inadequate counting skills. So I chose this yarn from Joann's. It's their exclusive collection and it's a wool/nylon/cotton blend. The yarn is like what I imagine would be created if someone carded up a bunch of cotton balls and spun the drafts just enough to convince them to stick together. The yarn has no spin, whatsoever, so in that, it's a little strange. I wasn't sure that this was going to work out when I first cast it on, but the more I work with it, the more fond I become of it. I'm even thinking of making some of those gloves they have on knitty. You know, the bulky ones that are seemed? I would link it for you, but I'm
a) pretty sure you know what I'm talking about
b) know that if you've never seen them before, you could find them on knitty in a flash
and
c) stuck in my post-lunch coma and litterally too lazy to go clicking around to find it.
Seriously, it's amazing that I have the energy to type right now. Damn Subway and their ridiculous bread.
Anyhow, the yarn is amazingly soft, not so unstretchy as to really strain the hands and remarkably warm but not itchy at all. Seriously, even I could make a scarf out of it and sleep in it and I wouldn't even itch. Not bad for $5.99 for a 50g ball (131,2 yards) of bulky yarn.
The only thing is that it's not exactly matching guage here, which I didn't think would be that much of a problem, but it is involving some thinking. Since the arms worked so well in width but not in length, I thought the same would apply to the legs. But, not so much. So I've already reknitted and ripped another larger version of the leg and got this far on my new version. The first was too skinny, even with stuffing, and really - what elephant has skinny legs? That's just crazy talk.
So, when I get to the rest of the pattern, it's going to be on a wing and a prayer. The body is knitted straight up from the legs (in some weird 2 circs method yet to be comprehended), so I'm not worried there, but the decreases, head, and ears are going to be interesting. I hope that there's not too much ripping back needed here because
a) the yarn can really only stand to be frogged once
b) a knitted toy for an adult shouldn't be that much work
and
c) I don't know if this post lunch coma will ever wear off

Anyhow, the knitting might be slowing for a little bit because I've got this

and I'm sooo excited to start gardening. There are some early plants that I can even get in the ground this weekend from seed and I can't wait. At first I thought that any magazine put out by a company that sells garden products would just be a big advertisement for their products, but this one isn't at all. Sure there are ads, but none of the articles push their products at all. No mention of stick Miracle gro here or fertilizer there. It's very well done, and extremely helpful. I'd highly recommend it to someone who's just getting started with vegetable growing or growing from seeds.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~HOORAY FOR SPRING~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's coming....

2006-03-27T14:56:00.000-05:00

Before I start, I must confess that this here blog might turn to the garden on a semi regular basis through the summer. I adore gardening and we have a great yard, with lots of potential. Last summer was spent ripping out some serious jungle overgrowth, and this year I have high hopes for what I can do, especially in the way of vegetables. So between the knits there will likely be shots of seeds and greens - and maybe even some jarring.

Yesterday, I went to the mall (where you would have thought it was only days before Christmas, what with all the shoppers - except ofcourse they were all wearing clothes like it was mid-August.), and when I got home our yard had all these weird dark spots. When my weak little eyes finally focused, I realized that it was birds. There were no less than a hundred starlings between our yard and our neighbor to the back. They were all fascinated with eating something off the lawn. Why the lawn? I thought. There's no bird seed there. Could this be the problem?

I guess it's time to start being vigilant about the bird feeder, so they can all make more baby birdies. This makes me happy, because more birdies, means less buggies. While, as a gardener, I have nothing against many a bug, I do have something against most of the bugs that birds eat, so I'm glad to bring them to the yard. And Jordan is glad to chase them away. *sigh* At least everyone is getting their exercise.

Anyhow, ofcourse by the time I got out to the yard with my camera there were no more birds. They must have sensed that I was coming to capture them for immortality and had to all fly off so that I had no proof that they were eating our lawn. But while I was out there I took some photos to prove that despite the icky weather we've been having lately, that nature knows that spring is upon us.

One of the few flowering bulbs that the people that we bought the house from had planted, that is actually blooming. I don't think any of them bloomed last year at all.

Extreme close up of the same flower.

This is a little flower I found in the ivy. I don't know if the ivy is flowering or if it's a different plant just trying to make it, but either way it's pretty.

This is a shot of our neighbor's yard. She has a lovely garden that she cares for frequently. If look you can kind of see a duck butt above the flowers. Jordan thought the duck was real the first day it was in the garden and I had to drag a confused dog in the house that morning because she couldn't stop barking at the statue.

This is a bloom on our Magnolia tree. At the end of the season, right before it loses it's leaves it produces these funny, little fuzzy pods. And when the spring comes they open and look like this....

This tree is stunning if full bloom. Once all the pick tulip like flowers pop out of their fuzzy homes, I will take a picture of it. I love to just stare at this tree in all it's glory.

And finally the hostas are coming up all over the place. They aren't my favorite plant, but they are fun to watch grow up every year. A heartier plant, I have not met.

Tomorrow I promise pictures of knitting, and possibly the socks. They are finished and have been on my feet, but the light was awful yesterday, so no photos. I hope to get them today or tomorrow, but in the meantime I have other things to distract you with.

It's....

2006-03-23T13:53:00.000-05:00

A sock....okay, well not quite. But it is a turned heel. And it's further along today, since this picture was taken yesterday, but there wasn't much more to show today. I'm just moving along with the decreases. As of Wed. before I started knitting this little bit was all I needed to use up before I actually got back to the point of frog, and last night I managed to do that. When I realized that I had finally, after three days, gotten back to where I started from, I was so excited. I sure hope nothing else goes wrong (knocking soundly on wood!).

This darn sock is taking forever, I tell you, and yet I can't seem to stop working on it. Last night, and the night before, I knit on it, for what seemed like hours, and feel like I've barely gotten anywhere. I suppose that's what happens when you have to redo such a large section of work. Pride goeth before the fall, and all.
I just want to get this sucker done so I can wear them while it's still winter-ish. Yes I know it's now technically Spring, which I couldn't be more grateful for, but the Mother Nature is clearly in no mood to move on with the season. Our first day of Spring was greeted with snow. Granted, it barely made it to the ground before melting, and wasn't very heavy, but I'm pretty sure there was a point trying to be proven. Clearly Mother Nature has no concern with our silly little calendar as it relates to her weather patterns. Either that, or she's waiting until the day I finish these socks to warm up, just to piss me off.
If that's what it is, so be it! It's only more inspiration to finish. I'll take warmer weather over wearing wool socks this season, any day of the week.

This post inspired by this guy. One of my absolute favorites from the show.

For the Knotty Girls

2006-03-21T11:15:00.000-05:00

In lieu of having nothing to show you today, I have decided to do this. When I first read it, I thought the ladies were nuts, but that's what I love about Jen and La. They speak to my crazy side.
After thinking about it, I found some of the answers and decided to hunt up the rest of them. I honestly can't believe I found the other answers as fast as I did, but here they are.

I didn't put any of the pictures in, since it would take awhile to get permission to borrow. So I linked to the big pictures (mostly) for all the shots.

1. A blog which you think people have not discovered.
I'm fairly certain not many folks have discovered Woolgathering. She's got a lot a thoughts on a lot of things....including knitting and design.

2. A blog whose author lives close to you physically. Just get as close as you can, it’s all relative.
Would you know it! Eunny lives close to me. I could have even gone to the Panera knitting thing, but ofcourse I noticed a day late. I'm usually a dollar short too, btw.

3. An unusual or weird animal picture.
I don't know how unusual it is, but this picture is fabulous. I love Vito's ears. He is so adorable. Plus Jo is an awesome knitter who makes loads of fabulous socks.

4. An entry that made you laugh and got you strange looks from family or co-workers. Pretty much all of Yarn Harlot's entries (that are supposed to funny) have me laughing, loudly, in my cubie no less. And yes I get strange looks. One of my favorites is on this page March 1st - the scarf heard round the world.

5. An idea you wish you’d thought of.
Martha came up with this little Home Depot idea (March 15th). It's so simple and perfect. I love Home Depot, how did I miss this??

6. Something you’d like to knit.
Something Red from Wendy. I've even bought the pattern, but not yarn for it yet, since I'm trying to save up for Maryland Sheep and Wool.

7. A picture of something you consider beautiful
I love this picture. It isn't knitting, but it's from a knitting blog =) She takes gorgeous pictures, and I love the layouts.

8. A blog whose author you’d like to one day meet in person
I'd love to meet Debi. She's been really helpful to me, and she's very sweet and freaking hilarious to boot. Ofcourse I'd have to go to Florida, because I'd need to get some Pumpkin action too!

9. A blog of someone you have already met in person.
Heather is the only knit blogger I've met in person (though this is soon to change). I'm willing to bet I've crossed paths with several knitters- somewhere along the way, because they too live close, but have never met them. Heather and I have been best friends for what will be 20 years.

So ladies, there you have it. I must say that I got hooked on a lot of these knit blogs from links from your site. Thanks for giving me more reasons to not do work at work. =)

Two of everything....nothing to show

2006-03-20T14:08:00.000-05:00

Yesterday started out to be a very productive day, indeed. I sat down with my lovely heel flapped sock and I turned the heel. It worked out perfectly, now that I understand the concept. I didn't even have to look at what to do since it makes sense now. Great, I thought, I'll pick up the stitches then bag her up to knit while I'm at the concert (I went to a classical music concert yesterday). So I did, and I sat knitting while waiting for the concert to start, then I knit during intermission, then I knit during the talk back, and while I was doing that I saw it. One. dropped. stich. Right there at the first row of the gusset. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be a knit two together and I missed a stitch or what, but when I tried to drop a stitch down to pick it up, there was nothing to be done. I couldn't get the stitch back in the line up with out it looking seriously messy. So, I sat there in the hall ripping out all the rows back to where I picked up the stitches. It was a lot of yarn. And then, I had a very hard time trying to get the needle back into the the stitches on the top of the foot. Every time I got a stitch on the needle, then next stitch would ladder. Surely, it didn't help that I was with dark yarn in a dimly lit theatre, and then later in a moving car. But, I eventually got it back to where I started the day.
So I sat, frustrated on my couch, and turned the heel again, and picked up the stitches. Then I knit the first round of decreases and began my plain round when I saw it. I big, fat hole. Not a dropped stitch, just a nasty gap. One would think that since I had already messed up and not knit the extra rows on the heel flap and had to pick up more stitches than were slipped that there couldn't possibly be any gaps, but that one would be wrong. I managed to make a huge hole at the join, regardless. I'm supposing it's because the yarn is stressed out and the heel flap, with those angry stitches, needs to be ripped back and reknit too. I don't like this idea, but it's better than a huge hole at the join. It's not like the slipped stitches are all tight to begin with, anyway. Picking them up twisted, a la Kathy, seems to help prevent the ladder look, but I just want the slipped stitches to be tighter. Is there a way to do this?
In looking at this pattern from Wendy, it appears that she wraps her slipped stitches when she does her short row heels. Granted, this is toe up, not top down, but I wonder if that's a solution to making those slipped stitches tighter? If it might help on the flap in this case? To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what wrapping the stitch does for you, but the fact is it's going to bulk up the stitch a bit, which would help with my frustration around the looseness of the slipped stitch, but I just don't know if it works that way. So, what say you? Does it seem that if I just reknit the heel flap that it should fix my little stitch issue of them being too loose? You know, as long as I knit it the right length and only pick up the stitches once, like I was supposed to. Because before I noticed the drop stitch, it was looking pretty good. Or is there some better way of doing this, that I just don't know yet? I know there are alternatives, I just know how any of them work.

Geez, one little dropped stitch ruined my whole knitting day and got me all frustrated. Darnit! Isn't this supposed to be relaxing? Sheesh!

I must have the luck of the Irish

2006-03-17T12:10:00.000-05:00

There isn't a drop of Irish blood in these veins, but I must be lucky today. I went surfing for a cute little pic to put on my post today, and I found this. That my friends, is a freaking pattern for a four leaf clover hat! How awesome is that? I don't know that I would ever make it, but it's so much fun that I found that. Especially while all I was looking for was a nice picture of four leaf clovers.

I have some bit of luck with four leaf clovers, actually. I find them all the time, as my friends and family can attest to. A couple of years ago, I found so many that I actually sealed them into paper and gave them out as presents. They were all from different locations, so it's not like I've got a crop of them out back. Although, that does sound like fun. =)

Anyhow, onto my knitting. I can hardly believe this happened, finally, but what you see here is an actual second sock with a completed heel flap. When I was checking the leg length against the other sock, I couldn't believe that I had actually made it. I also can't believe that I actually got to and through the heel flap. Now for the best part, turning. I was too distracted with tv last night, and didn't have enough time, so I'll get to that later. But, you know what they say, after you turn the heel the rest of the sock flies. I'm so happy, I can't wait to have this sucker finished!

Oh and just to prove this isn't just an old picture of the first sock, there's the toe of the finished first sock. =P

Wee hats for wee people

2006-03-15T14:55:00.000-05:00

Here is my first preemie hat. It's out of Knitpicks Shine sport weight. It's awesome that I even have to say that it's their sport weight version, but that's another post ;) I did this on size 3 needles so that it would be nice and tight and warm. I fear that knitting out of cotton doesn't make for a particularly warm hat, so the tighter the better, I guess.
I have a bunch of Shine leftover from knitting the blanket, so I'm happy to use that up. I even have several full skeins left, which I've considered doing something else with, but fear that I will need more yarn and then be up the creek. This yarn was ordered in October, so the chances of the same dye lot existing anywhere are not good. I'm in no mood to take that chance.

Along with the shine I'm using two gigundo balls of yarn that I bought to make some other hats and things. The skeins are so huge, I could surely get something other than a hat out of them, but I feel that a blanket might be too time consuming. I could get so many hats made in the time it would take for one blanket. On the other hand, I could knit the blanket continental, which I can't do with the dpns. I have tried and tried, and it's nothing but messy and uncomfortable. So English it is. But, because I've been only working on these hats and the never ending sock, all I've been doing is tiny needles and throwing, and I'm staring to get a little crazy from it. Perhaps a blanket is just the thing. Hmmmm....

Bork! Bork!

2006-03-14T12:16:00.000-05:00

You Are the Swedish Chef

"Bork! Bork! Bork!"

Your happy and energetic - with borderline manic tendencies.

No one really gets you. And frankly, you don't even get you.

But, you sure can whip up a great chocolate mousse

The Muppet Personality Test

This must serve as my post today as it was too yucky this morning to take pictures and yesterday I woke up too late. I do have a finished preemie hat and the beginnings of another one to show. I am also working on the sock that will not grow. I knit and knit and knit on the second sock for hours and the leg isn't getting any longer. I'm not sure how this works, but I'm pretty sure there's a conspiracy going on that might involve SAS (sheep against sheering). Anyhow, if the heel turn doesn't come soon I'm going to have one short sock and one long sock. I guess that's what you get when you buy Lorna's Laces that has enough yardage to make knee socks from!
Anyhow, whilst I sit in meeting after meeting all afternoon, go forth, take the muppet test and tell me what fuzzy Jim Henson creation you are. =)

Tiny knitting

2006-03-10T11:43:00.000-05:00

As I sat knitting the beginnings of this little hat last night my mind was wandering. I had been to the Preemie Project website to try and find some hat and sock patterns to make for the these wee babies fighting for their lives. I saw many things on their website and my heart went out to the babies, but what I couldn't stop thinking about is what if I had a preemie? I couldn't imagine the fear and worry that a mother must feel at having her baby so early. I felt such sadness at the thought of having to leave my baby at the hospital for weeks on end, wondering if he or she would make it. I got a lump in my throat at the sight of patterns for burial gowns - at the thought of ever needing to have one. While I know that there is a need for such a thing, I simply could not knit one. If I did, you could block it with the tears that I would weep with every stitch.
And then I thought, what if? What would I do? Where would I turn with the worry and the fear? Surely to my husband, to my mother, to my family and friends, but what if these people weren't so near by? What if we had moved away from family and friends? What if my husband was away? What if I didn't know if he was ever coming home?
I thought of all these things because I know first and second hand of some of these feelings. I know of and have lived the military life. I am an Army brat and grandaughter, a Navy neice twice over, and Marine Corps girlfriend. I know about what a woman goes through when she loves someone in the military. I have seen women raising their children wondering if their husbands are ever coming home. I have seen the strength and the courage that military wives and girlfriends display that they didn't even know they were capable of - raising families, maintaining the home, keeping the faith. They work through the fear and the loneliness, they support one another, they live on phone calls and letters and the hope that everything will be okay. Many of them have moved across the country, or across the world, so that they can be with their loved ones while they serve. They have left behind home and friends and family, and it is these women that I thought of while I knit. I thought of the guts and bravery that these women have to show just to get themselves through, let alone to have your child while your husband was so far away. My heart went out to all the women who had little ones who were fighting to survive while their husbands were fighting for their freedom. And that is what made my decision for me about where my wee hats and socks and whatnot should go. My plan is donate all that knitting to the NICU ward of the military hospitals so that these women and children know that eventhough their families and friends are far away, someone is there to support them in their time of need.

Perplexed puppy

2006-03-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

I am smattering this post with pictures of a very perplexed puppy because I don't really have any knitting to show you. This is Jordan trying to figure out what the hell boyfriend is doing - he was playing his French horn at the time. The look of confusion that animals give to humans is one of my favorite things about owning pets. I laugh every time I see it.
Anyhow, I choose not bore you with pictures of the second sock. Imagine the pictures of the first sock. I'm past the cuff and a little into the leg of the sock. I really have no idea how long it's going to take me to finish since the first one was started way back when, and also was a huge learning process. I would like to get a good handle on how long it takes me to finish a pair. Just so I know.
Currently the sock is all I'm working on, but my mind is wandering to other things. I did buy two HUGE balls of Acryl-ick yarn yesterday for $2 each at Joanns (they're having a sale on it. Get it while you can). I would like make some baby hats and socks for 40 days for Others. I'm not really celebrating Lent, but I think it's a good time frame to work on things, and it's nice to know that you are working with other people for the greater good. I haven't signed up yet because I'd like to take a crack at baby socks or a hat to see how it will turn out. I'd like to have one thing done before I dive in, that way. I also plan to throw in the three hats that I made learning continental. So far, I have no idea where any of this would go yet, but there are many great causes. So, I've spent some time surfing for good patterns, and I've found a few. I'm trying to find patterns that work with the yarn and needles I have so that I can continue to save for Maryland Sheep & Wool. Heather and I will be attending, and I'm planning on catching up with Martha. Any other bloggers that are going to be there, send me an email at jkv78ATyahooDOTcom I'd love to rally everyone together either at the festival or after. MD is, after all, my home state ;)
So, I imagine that the photos may be pretty boring for awhile, unless I manage to knock out some fast booties or a hat or some other photo worthy thing. In the meantime, I will be loading all of my old photos onto my brand new external hard drive. That is, if Boyfriend will put it together for me (hint, hint). Just don't throw away anything, I want my rebate!

Three years and a sock

2006-03-07T13:07:00.000-05:00

Here is one completed sock. It's mostly to the letter of the pattern, with some "alterations" in the form of mistakes. The first one is that I made the heel flap two rows too long, but that worked out great. I suppose I have a long heel or something because it works. Because it's "too long" it caused me to need to pick up two extra stitches on either side, which also worked out because I have a large circumference ball of the foot. I ended up keeping said stitches until the toe decrease. That brings me to the second alteration - the toe decreases. I made the foot a half inch too long, and decided to just take it out of the toe decreases. I could have ripped it back, but I was in no mood because I wanted to finish. It's probably not the best decision, but it worked out fine. My only small pattern gripe is with threading the needle through the last stitches to close the toe. This makes for a little knot which sits right on the end of my second toe (which is longer than my big toe. Let's not get into what that says about me). It bugs me for the first few minutes I wear them, but then I get right over it. I've looked and the toes on the other ribbed socks are all different, so I doubt I'll change any of the them. I am, however, fairly certain that if I ever see another pattern with this closure that I will change it to grafting. I like the seemless thing much better.
The second picture here is the beginnings of the second sock. I forced myself to cast it on, to prevent myself from from using the needles to start a different sock. I'm so excited about this knit socks thing that I have to rein it in a bit to get the second one done. I feared that I would start a new sock, and then have a mismatched pair that would either never get mates, or worse, get unmatched mates due to forgetting my "alterations". Ofcourse, I figured I'd forget my alterations no matter what I did , so here you see my notes, and the crazy amount of yarn that's left over from my first sock. Any ideas on what to do with this?

Oh, and the three years thing? Today is Boyfriend and my three year dating anniversary. We've been through so much, I can't believe it's been three years already. What a lifetime apart things are now than they were then. Amazing.

FO: Silk camisole

2006-03-06T16:10:00.000-05:00

In which I show my face for the first time (almost) on this here blog.

Yarn: 5 or so skeins of Plymouth Wildflower DK, color Ocean. This includes the gauge swatch that I knitted (over and over).
Needles: Crystal Palace US4 26" circs.
Gauge: 6 sts per inch
Pattern: Silk Camisole from Last Minute Knitted Gifts
Measurements: I made the size 36.
Notes: First let me say that I HATE this yarn. I will not use it again. In fact, I haven't even let the leftovers mingle with the stash yet. They're out in the cold on the couch. I dislike it that much. Yes it's cotton, but it has a good deal of acrylic in it, but that doesn't help in the least with the hand of the yarn. I must say that it looks nice knitted up, but it's a huge pain to work with, and did nothing but cause me physical pain and mental frustration.
About the pattern - Firstly, if you're going to knit this size, be wary of the lace edge. It's a very nice 9 stitch repeat, but she places plain stitches at the dead front and back, to make the top larger. I cannot fathom why anyone would do this, and if they did, why they wouldn't put these stitches on the side. Needless to say, I changed this pattern so that the plain parts would be on the side. If I had realized earlier what was happening, I most certainly would have simply added two lace repeats instead of those 9 plain stitches. So silly.
And secondly - I have two words for the body of this pattern - Waist Shaping. She says that there's no need for shaping, because the lace is nice and the neck is nice, and blah blah blah. Do you SEE how I look in this thing? I mean, I know I'm toting some extra winter weight, but geez, I look like a tree trunk. I can't complain, because it's my first knit and I'm happy that it goes over my head and actually fits, but for all of you knitters who've made a garment before, do some shaping, for the love of Pete. Especially if you knit this out of an unstretchy yarn like I did.
Otherwise it's a nice pattern. I hurt my brain a little trying to figure out how to divide for the v-neck, but after I had my light bulb moment, it made sense. I liked the way that it's all one peice, and that the straps are i-cords. Now I think they will be very sturdy, whereas before I knit them I worried they would stretch to no end. I liked learning to kitchener with only four stitches to work with. It looks a bit like crap, but that might have something to do with trying to learn to graft while ski jumping is on. Over all, I would probably make this again, in Knitpicks Shine or Dale Svale with the changes I stated, and be happy as a clam. Just make sure, if you knit anything from this book that you check the extensive errata.

Here's another shot. Fuzzy picture, though.

Tomorrow (or around there. Things have been crazy at work, and I can't believe it's been 6 days since I posted. I hope to keep up to date in the future, but I have no idea what the future brings around here), I show my first sock. Things might be turning strongly towards socks. I think I'm in love.

I've got the bug

2006-03-01T14:38:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately I think this might be true in more ways then one, since I'm feeling pretty icky right now, but for purposes of this post, I mean the sock bug ;) I turned the heel on Monday and tried it on, and it's perfect. Ofcourse, last night I realized that I had added two rows to the length of the heel flap by mistake, but it turned out to be a good thing because the fit is exactly right. Ofcourse it's a little hard to tell how something fits when there's two pointy stick holding it together, but as far as I can tell it was good. When I picked up the stitches last night, I decided to go ahead and pick up the extra slipped stiches because otherwise I'd have some ugly holes. Also, this is the point where I'm thinking of making it a little wider around, anyhow. I've got to do some math and figure out if they will fit comfortably around the ball of my foot if I decrease all the way down. I seem to have an extra large football (hehe), so I think it's probably best to keep those stitches in. What's a good negative ease percentage for a sock?

I know you're waiting for the report and pictures of the cami, but you might be waiting until the weekend. I'm sure as heck not going outside to take pictures, but it would be good to get some in natural light. That, and the fact that I feel mega poopy, is not helping me want to take pictures. So I leave you with a (somewhat blurry) photo of Jordan, trying to figure out why I insist on holding that black thing up to my face and blinding her.

Little dogs with black faces are very hard to get pictures of.

A little off

2006-02-27T15:41:00.000-05:00

So today, everything is just a little off. Everything I do today seems to be a chore and refuses to come out right. Nothing dramatic. No coffee all down the front of my shirt, but yes both tea and coffee on my coat and gloves. No car accidents, but my shopping cart tried to run away after I had put into the corrall - I caught it right before it collided with a minivan. No accidentally wiping the hard drive, but I've had issues with run time errors, and the infinately loading page all day.
So as you can see, I'm having a bit of a tough time. I'm willing to blame PMS, allergies, not going to bed early enough, and deciding to get out of bed at all this morning. In short I'm a bit grumpy and as a result I have very little focus.
This could explain why when I went to go back to my happy little sock, I proceeded to work correctly back and forth as instructed, and then thought that I had done something wrong. I promptly, but slowly, tinked back the stitches, only to realize that I had done it right the first time. Classic. So along with the lack of focus comes the lack of progress. I find it highly unlikely that I will make any tonight, as my mood is increasingly declining. Usually misery loves company, but this misery wants to be in bed with the covers over its head and some hot tea and chocolate covered pretzels on the night stand. I might just have to give the beast what it wants if I ever want to be free of it. Either way, one of us is going down. Let's hope the happy me comes up the winner, and soon.

Tis Finished!

2006-02-26T19:43:00.000-05:00

I will report more tomorrow about this (okay, or the next day), at which point I should have some real pictures. With a little help from boyfriend, and strategic lighting, I should have some photos of me wearing it. For now you will have to endure this shot of me wearing it over several layers of t-shirts, with my pajama pants, and in the mirror with no flash at night. Enjoy!
I actually finished it yesterday, because I knew that I was going to be out all day today with my Mom at athe American Craft Coucil show in downtown Baltimore. It was pretty interesting, and is likely to be my subject for tomorrow. Anyhow, I hope all that tried finished or are pleased with what they accomplished.
I am proud of what I did, especially since it's my first garment and it actually fits! However, I don't plan on putting the stress of the timed knit back on myself again (at least until Christmas comes again).

Look at that progress!

2006-02-24T13:31:00.000-05:00

How pathetic is this? This is my divide for the v-neck progress from last night. I think I managed to actually unknit more stiches than I knitted. What a waste of three hours. A half hour spent staring at two lines of the pattern, being unable to comprehend them, another half hour on the phone confusing the hand holder, and then two hours going forwards, realizing the stupidest error ever, unknitting, and then trying to make some progress before bed. The frustration was tangible. I think I even upset the dog with my growling. The good part is that we finally made sense of the pattern. The bad part is that it means I have twice as many stitches to knit in the next thirteen rows than I thought I did. The difference really isn't that huge, but it's about stamina at this point. Honestly, I can't believe I've made it this far considering how much frustration this pattern, and this (God forsaken yarn!) has been to this point. Who knows what's in store for me in the next two pages of it.
All I know is that following the pattern word for word, isn't always as easy as it sounds.

Nothing much to report

2006-02-23T15:07:00.000-05:00

Someone you may know is in jail today.
The jealous tendecies of this little furball got the best of her yesterday. Before I left for work I fed the kitty two little treats, as the dog looked on. Pay no mind that Jordan got her biscuit before Sunshine got her little treats. When Boyfriend returned home yesterday he found our basement covered in little blue peices of aluminum. These peices used to be the bag for the Whiska's kitty treats, but now all the treats, and half the bag, were in this little dogs tummy. That, along with some Neosporin, which I deduce was just collateral damage because it was near the kitty treats. My guess is that the kitty treats fell victim to "chainsaw" as we lovingly refer to her, about 35 and a half seconds after I closed the front door on the way to work. By the time I got home she had suffered no ill effects from eating all the treats and the ointment. Thankfully. It's my deduction, that she is perhaps half German Shepherd and half goat. Who knew?

In knitting news I have nothing to report. I'm shamelessly using this picture of the dog to distract you from the fact that I didn't knit a single stich yesterday. Not. one. stitch. Sad, but I do have an excuse. Well, two. The first is that I felt like poopoo all day, and took quite a bit of meds, but nothing helped. The second is that the pattern made absolutely no sense to me and I had to call in the expert hand holder. With her help we managed to figure out what's going on, eventhough it makes no freaking sense to me. But I'm going to follow my mantra of Do as the pattern says, and hope it works out. I think they call that learning.

The knot of the century

2006-02-21T15:05:00.000-05:00

So, my News Gator went a little psycho today and decided that everything on the blogs for the month of February was new. When I logged on I had 363 "new" feeds to read. I mean I know it was a long weekend, but sheesh. Thankfully they were not all new or I'd still be on the first blog! But, I'm still digging through them, I doubt I'll catch up today. Living behind, story of my life lately, but that's another entry.

What you see here is the nearly finished stockinette in the round for the tank top. I would have the required 13.5 inches done if it wasn't for the knot of the century.
When I wound the skein into a ball, everything went fine. Ofcourse the skein flew off the table and onto the floor to entertain the furry things, but that's nothing new. But when it was all done I had my pretty little center pull ball on the winder. I even tied the outside strand to itself so that it wouldn't undwind and make a mess like it did last time. Then, when I pulled the ball off the winder I didn't quite grab it all and had to grab a couple of stray loops off the winder. I should have stopped right then and there and rewound the damn ball, but it was only a couple of loops, right? WRONG. The ball kept getting tangled on itself, no matter what I did, until finally there was no undoing it. So, I set my knitting down and went to untangle the mess. I got some more yards untangled until there was nothing I could do. I spent the next two hours trying to untangle the mess. About half way through I realized there was no way to do it without cutting the knitting free - yay another two ends to weave in, I'm so excited. Can't you tell? Anyhow, I spent the rest of the time untangling until I got to the heart of the matter only to find that there was no way in hell I could get the knot out, and even if I did the yarn would be totally useless. At this point I was so frustrated I just gave up and ate ice cream. So, hopefully tonight I'll finish up that stupid half an inch that I couldn't do last night and start dividing for the v-neck. Apparently some of this is knit flat, which I didn't realize. It's not an issue, but I'm not sure how it's going to work, but at this point, I'm just going to do what the pattern tells me to, and not ask questions. Not necessarily the best policy in life, but this being a beginner's first garment, it might just be the best plan of attack.

I'm just tired

2006-02-17T12:46:00.000-05:00

Here is a shot of where I was yesterday on the tank top. It sort of looks like a lot is done, but I'm really not that far. This is only 4 1/2 inches. The shot below this is from today. It's all of 5 1/2 inches. Only one inch got done last night, which initially I thought was going to be enough, until I realized that it needs to be 14 or so inches before I begin the divide for the neck. 9 days left, 14 inches left, an inch a day....you can see how this isn't going to work out.
So in referance to my post title, it's not that I'm tired of the stockinette, it's that I'm literally exhausted. With the house having been worked on all week there was a lot of gravel dust and mold in the air and it got into my not so fabulous lungs and slowed me down big time. Last night was the worst of it (I hope). Boyfriend mopped, and we can clean up some more this weekend, and get rid of it all. Hopefully then I'll get the spring back in my step. Couple that exhaustion along with how tired my fingers get with working with this yarn, and you can see why I'm not really getting anywhere. I've also had limited time lately, so I'm telling myself that's what the reason is. I wish there was something else I could do for this knit to make progress on it, that would be a nice break for my fingers, but there isn't. No way to make progress but knit and take lots of breaks. Boo.
Anyhow, if you look in the top picture you'll see a placket, for lack of a better word, right in the middle. There are two of these on this knit, both nine sitches wide. This is how she made the pattern accomodate the 36" bust, but in my opinion it sucks. The lace repeat is 9 stitches long and it seems like there must be away to make this thing the right size and still keep the pattern going around. I haven't looked further into the pattern to see where you divide for the v-neck, but these plackets split the stitches in the current center front and back. I do not want these things to be dead in the front of the tank top, it would look terrible. So, though I know nothing of patterning or adptation of patterns, I'm going to figure out an easy way to make sure these plackets become the sides, if the pattern isn't already knit this way. I just haven't had enough brain power to figure out this later step yet. I guess I better hurry up and get it together, or I'm going to be in more trouble than just sore fingers!

Random Randomness

2006-02-15T14:51:00.000-05:00

In honor of it being Wednesday, which I hear is random - from many a source, but think that MamaCate might have started it, but I'm not sure - I am declaring today a random day. There will be more of these considering that I frequently have days where I lose my grip of the English language altogether and can't get things out right on paper - or blogger, as the case may be. So here is my ordered list update of life's events lately. I'll try to keep knitting stuff at the top so if you're bored you can quickly move on with your life when the knitting content diminishes - as it most definately will.

edited: - Okay so I failed miserably at keeping knitting together. Oops.

Ordered list of not orderly things:

I got through the lace last night. That last row seemed to take forever, but it might have had something to do with the fabulousness that is House. By that I mean the television show. I managed to knit four rounds of stockinette. I felt like it was going quickly, and as soon as my gauge evens out after the lace, it will go much quicker.
Our actual house is not so fabulous right now. We are having our enormous crawl space worked on, and the contractors intelligence is questionable at best. I feel bad for Boyfriend because he has worked his tail off to help these guys move it along, and in turn they have done their part wrong, aren't answering phone calls, are breaking things, and didn't finish on time. Stupid Heads.
Stephanie both scared the crap out of me and made me feel better today. She has a ticker on her blog that counts down the days until the Olympics are over, but that's not what upset me. What got me is the percentage of how much time is passed. We're over 30% already. Eeep! However, she seems to be having the same issues of knitting, tinking, reknitting that I'm having - only her project is really freaking hard, and my issue is the inability to count to 9 correctly.
My office is so weird. Monday it smelled like drywall and plaster - yet no work was being done, this morning it smelled like Ode de Dorritos - yet no one had any, and this afternoon the hall smells like my college dorm. Talk about random.
Apparently 1-800-FLOWERS sells more than flowers. Witness this:

No wonder the box was bouncing all over the couch when we got it. Silly cat.

I'm getting more annoyed with stupid drivers lately. Yes, I know it snowed on Sunday, but guess what? It's not snowing anymore. Not only that, it's over 50 degrees, I promise you that shiny stuff on the ground is not black ice.
I'm thinking about getting this pattern. I've heard good things about Wendy's patterns, and to be honest, this is the first one I've really liked. If all goes well with the cami, this might be my first bigger garment, instead of the hourglass sweater. What do you think? Has anyone used one of her patterns before?
I must be having some odd subconcious issue with belongings today. I have attempted to leave my wallet in the parking lot of Target, lose my scarf in the lobby of the building, leave my keys in the car - all in the same lunch hour.
I am having the weirdest thing going on in my ear. It's like something in there is twitching and when it does it makes this little noise. I've had twitching in my eyelid before due to stress and lack of nutrients, but never in my ear. It's not painful, but it's getting real old. At least when it happens in my eye it doesn't mess with my vision. The ear twitching feels funny and makes a sound. Argh!
Sandy blogged about having issues with Tuesdays. I have always had problems with Tuesdays! My fish died on a Tuesday, my ex broke up with me on Tuesday, it's just always been a bad day. It feels good to know someone else has issues with it and that the universe is not just picking on me.
I think I have nothing else to say, but I know there's something in the back of my mind. As soon as I hit publish on this post I ~~will~~ may remember it and have to edit. I don't think there's a single post I haven't had to go back and edit due to my complete lack of short term memory. I think I was a really good goldfish in a past life and got reincarnated a little too far up the food chain. This explains a lot.
The end (if there ends up being a line item after this, you know why)

All the lace that fits to knit

2006-02-14T15:00:00.000-05:00

Well, almost.....

I have one more row of knits and one of lace and I'm done the lace for this cami! After that it's just miles and miles of stockinette. Well, there's the divide for the neckline and all that jazz that I've never done before, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?
At this point I'm happy to just move onto some mindless knitting (insert happy dance here). This thing has hurt my brains as much as it's hurt my fingers, and I need a break. I will attempt to not make the obligatory "Omgosh I'm so tired of all this freaking stocking stitch" post that usually follows the "I'm so happy I only have to knit stockinette" post. The good news is that I may be bored, but at least it should be right. No more missing YOs or k2tog. I just need to focus on not splitting the eighty million plies and I *should* be in the clear. I will say no more than that so as to not invite a curse. =)

I am keeping this post short since I usually blather on and on (and on) unecessarily and everyone just needs a break from that. Also, several thousand brain cells are out of commission at the moment due to excessive counting and tinking back. Hopefully they will be back in the game soon - I really miss them - but can't remember why.
-------

I would like to give all of you some virtual flowers for Valentine's Day, so here they are. Sorry you can't smell them, but they sure do look purdy.

Also, Jordan would like to ask you to be her Valentine, but she is too busy doing her interpretation of an Ostritch. Since we have no sand for her to put her head in, she opted for the snow instead.

How not to win the Olympics...

2006-02-13T15:10:00.000-05:00

Day 1 (Feb 10)

2:00pm - The better part of the knitting community casts on because they either worked their schedules or scheduled not to work. I work like a maniac and be bitter about work interfering with knitting. Wonder if I will ever get lunch.

3:00pm - Inhale lunch while answering emails. Be bitter about work again and not casting on.

8:00pm - Have too many drinks at bar to feel better about work. Go to friends house to watch a movie (and drink more) in lieu of casting on. Think "I've got plenty of time, right? It's only a tank top." Feel a small amount of remorse at not a) watching the opening ceremonies and b) not casting on.

10:30pm - Drag dead tired butt home, change clothes, fall into bed. Wonder why the hell I decided to schedule my car for maintenance at 8 am on a Saturday. Feel slightly annoyed that I failed to cast on on day 1.

Day 2 (Feb 11)

7:30am - Be extremely annoyed that I scheduled maintenance at 8am. Take pills for allergies. Take pills for hangover. Take tums for stomach upset that's sure to follow pills. Take car to shop. Go to breakfast. Feel better. Go home. Avoid casting on due to sleep deprivation. Resolve to take a nap after picking up car and then cast on.

9:00am - Go back to shop to pick up car.

10:00am - Decide that I'm not tired enough to take a nap right away. Play video games instead.

11:30am - Decide that now I am tired enough and pass out.

1:30pm - Finally get sorry butt out of bed with new found clarity and energy to cast on. Gather yarn and book. Wonder where needles are. Begin searching.

1:45pm - Begin really searching. Visually scanning all flat surfaces has failed to bring needles to light.

1:55pm - Start to get really annoyed at lack of organization and amount of stray, yet empty, bags from yarn store that are carelessly strewn around room formerly used as office, but is now clearly the room where empty boxes and bags go to die.

2:00pm - Begin tearing the rest of the house apart. Dig through stash to find yarn that was purchased on the same day as the needles. Find yarn. Question whether needles were ever purchased to begin with. Check banking account. Confirm that money given to yarn store is too much to just be for that Cascade. Wonder if the cat has taken the needles in an attempt to make a statement about bitterness due to knitting induced lack of lap time.

2:15pm - Become extremely upset and frantic. Go back to former office. Tear through knitting bag for the umpteenth time. Dig through stacks of papers, books, boxes, bags, and other mess.....again. Begin random outbursts involving unlady like phrases.

2:17pm - Consider going to LYS to buy another pair. Resolve that the needles (or cat) will not win this battle of wits. Dive into mess again.

2:30pm - Almost admit defeat. Stare blankly at pile of boxes and bags that I've been through twenty times now. Decide that in lieu of finding needles, I should clean up the mess I've made of the mess. Go through yarn store bags again before throwing them out.

2:31 - Find needles in "empty" bags. Do large dance of joy involving yelling and hopping. Stick tongue out at cat. Raise arms in triumph. Resolve to never throw out "empty" bags.

2:32pm - Examine mess made by attempt to find needles. Get discouraged. Resolve to clean it up at a later date. Quickly leave room and close door.

3:00pm - Settle down with knitting to watch a movie and cast on over 200 stitches.

3:30pm - Count stitches over and over and over to ensure the right number are there. Ponder how someone could pass college Calculus but be unable to count to 200 without issues. Doubt self again. Count some more.

3:45pm - Resolve that all the stitches are there. Attempt to join in the round, but freak out that there must be a twist somewhere. Obsessively check for twist several times. Check again. Finally join. Knit one round. Realize that it would have been brighter to start with a full skein instead of the one that I swatched with. Curse under breath.

4:11pm - Be annoyed that it took so long to knit one round. Wonder why I failed to cast on earlier. Attempt to figure out how long this knit will take at this pace. Start getting into double digits. Freak out and stop counting.

4:17pm - Begin working lace. Look at pattern over and over and over. Wonder why it's taking so long to memorize.

5:00pm - Finish knitting the round between lace rounds and begin second round of lace. Get to halfway mark and realize that the number of stitches is wrong. Go back, count again. Realize that one yarn over was missed all the way at the beginning of the initial round. Consider tinking back. Resolve to rip it out.

5:05pm - Put partly used skein away and get new skein of yarn and a drink. Consider putting alcohol in drink. Consider inability to do lace sober. Resolve to drink alcohol straight, after finishing lace.

5:20 - Cast on a billion stitches again. Go through same questionably sane series of checking and rechecking number of stitches and lack of twisting. Join. Knit one round. Get to end of round and realize that my join was wrong and that it's coming apart. Also that I may or may not have one extra stitch. K2tog to get the right number of stitches. Continue to doubt self about a twist in the round. Start lace.

8:00pm - Finally get through one repeat only after realizing that I'm short two stitches and have to tink back a half a round of lace and full round of knit. Be pissed off at inability to concentrate with no distractions except wandering mind. Consider Riddlin. Consider Vodka. Resolve to decide after lace.

10:00pm - Give up because hands hurt due to ~~crappy~~ inflexible yarn.

10:01pm - Consider how screwed I am.

10:02pm - Head to kitchen to find Vodka.

Day 3 (Feb 12)

All day - Knit round of lace then round of knits. Attempt to knit another round of lace, only to realize there's a mistake, tink back, fix problem, knit lace, knit, knit lace, tink back, scream, curse, knit lace, take break, be annoyed, play video games.

Day 4 (Feb 13)

8:00am - Go to work. Be annoyed that enormous snow storm managed to dump the most snow on the town that I work in and still they did not cancel. Be bitter that it couldn't snow during the week.

2:00pm - Finally able to take lunch. Knit round. Take deep breath. Knit lace. Manage to get through one full lace round without screwing up. Go back to check number of stitches. Do little dance of joy in cubicle.

2:45pm - Hope no one saw dance of joy.

2 minutes ago - Blog about stupidity so the world can see that even someone with the attention span of a goldfish can knit. Just not well. Or quickly. Or make much progress.

Now - Resolve not to think about how bad process has been so far. Get distracted by shiny object. Try to remember what I was thinking about. Plan to post picture tomorrow when there's enough knitting to actually show something.

Yeah, right, like I have time to post.....

2006-02-10T09:30:00.000-05:00

In lieu of having any energy to post, I bring you this little bit of trivia. I got this from the lovely Debi. Put your name in the box and see what happens. You may find out things you never knew about yourself ;)

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Jessica!

South Australia was the first place to allow Jessica to stand for parliament!
In Chinese, the sound 'Jessica' means 'bite the wax tadpole'!
The Jessica-fighting market in the Philippines is huge - several thousand Jessica-fights take place there every day.
Apples are covered with a thin layer of Jessica.
Owls cannot move their eyes, because their eyeballs are shaped like Jessica.
There is no lead in a lead pencil - it is simply a stick of graphite mixed with Jessica and water!
Jessica can remain conscious for fifteen to twenty seconds after being decapitated!
The Church of Scientology was founded in 1953, at Washington D.C., by Jessica.
Plato believed that the souls of melancholy people would be reincarnated into Jessica!
Grapes explode if you put them inside Jessica.

2006-02-09T16:55:00.000-05:00

Things have been out of control with life lately. I wake up in the morning and I feel like I set my toe on the line at the race start and have to sprint around in circles until I'm able to come home again. Every day has been more intense and more insane than the one before, with no end in sight. Thus, I have gotten very little knitting in.
By the time I get home, I barely have the energy to stare at the television, or even eat dinner, let along break out the sticks and string and knit. What you see here is my finished (not in this picture) gauge swatch. In this photo it's still on the needles, but last night I bound it off. I HAVE to wash it tonight, to make sure it's going to stay the same, before I go casting on a a full garment out of this ~~crap~~ yarn. That's all I can manage to plan for tonight. Hopefully I can keep my eyes open long enough to get it from the washer to the dryer, let alone finishing that and measuring it. I don't want to get my hopes too high. Especially since tomorrow promises to be just as busy as all the rest have been, so I need to get my sorry butt in bed as soon as possible.
So, tomorrow, some time after 2 EST, I will cast on this camisole. Hopefully things will go smoothly and I can get some serious knitting time in over the weekend. Thankfully, I am off for President's day, so that's (in theory) an extra free day to knit my stix into a frenzy.

I sincerely hope that any of this made sense. I'm barely cognizant at this point, and don't expect to be any better in the next week or so. My blogging is likely to become sporadic and decreasingly sensical. If it turns into complete gibberish, please let me know, as it is likely to make perfect sense to the crazy lady within.

Let there be gauge!

2006-02-07T14:17:00.000-05:00

Last night I sat down with my new size 4s in hand (another set of size 4s that is. There is no way I'm swatching on 26" circs) and began my swatch. At this point, I pretty much didn't care what it came out to be, I was going to make it work. I was ready to change the entire pattern to convince something that would fit the gauge I got. Instead, by some miracle yet to be explained, I managed to get gauge. I know it's a little early, and don't worry I haven't cast off yet, but it's looking good. This is the inch that I managed last night and I got another 1.5 inches done at lunch.
Firstly I would like to express how freaking hard it was to get a focused picture of this swatch. I took five pictures and tried every setting on the damn camera to get it to work and this is the best I could do. It's still a little hazy, but it's the best of the bunch. Most of them look like blue blobs decided to have a race.
Secondly, I would like to say that there's no way that I'm going to be able to knit exclusively on this project. This yarn makes me want to drink enough adult beverages to keep several local liquor stores in business. It brings a whole new meaning to splitty. It's microspun splitty. It's giving the addi's a run for their money. I'm not even sure if I'm going to be able to knit this cami on my beloved crystal palace needles that I bought, because they might be too pointy. However, I'm ready to ~~wallow in alcohol~~ cross that bridge when I come to it. The points on those babies wear down a little bit with use (which I like), so perhaps it will be pointy long enough to get me through the lace section at the bottom and worn enough to make it through the stockinette. Otherwise I'll be making my way to the ~~liquor~~ yarn store to deal with the issue.
So the plan is to finish this swatch, wash it, pray, measure again, and put it down until Friday. I need a break from this ~~crap~~ yarn (not that I have strong opinions), until then. Initially I thought that the challenge in this Olympic endeavor was going to be knitting my first garment, but now I see it will be knitting my first garment while on several illicit chemicals.

Moving on brighter things. I received this in the mail yesterday:

Look how nicely she wrapped it up!

This is some Vesper Sock yarn that I had managed to get from Knitterly Things. I'm so very excited. I've been covetting this yarn for some time now and managed to catch it in her shop. She also sells through Kpixie, but I've never caught it when they had stock. People eat this yarn up, and now that I have some, I can see why. It's soft, squishy and beautiful.
My plan is that this will be my reward for making it through the cami without having to check myself into Betty Ford.

Hat, Hat, Hat

2006-02-06T14:30:00.000-05:00

Here is my finished Continental Purl practice hat. Please ignore the ribbing oops that happened on the first and second row. I was purling backwards or "combined" if you will, (which I shouldn't have) and I managed to also mess up and do one too few purls along the way. Hence half of the bottom looks a little screwy. Other than that it was pretty spot on. I decided that I really needed the practice in the ribbing, so I carried it all the way up the hat. I must say this hat looks way better on me than the plain stockinette ones do. I just don't have a good close-fit hat head. I do look lovely in all hats with brims and texture.
Anyhow, once I got to the top I wasn't exactly sure how to do the decreases and continue the ribbing. I suppose I could have knit them as I saw them and just k2tog when I needed to, but I thought the stockinette would look okay. I was wrong. It doesn't look so bad in this picture, but in person, it looks rather silly. If I decide I need some more practice, I'll try to continue the ribbing all the way up. I'm fairly certain that would look far less silly, but I've been wrong before. Also, I don't imagine that the ridiculous amount of times I screwed up on the decreases helped any. I had had a very rough day and a worse night on Friday, and I'm sorry to say the hat paid for it. Thank goodness it was cheap yarn. Which I must say that I hated at first (Lion Brand Wool Ease), but really don't mind now. It's stretchy and fuzzy, and pretty soft. It doesn't take a beating very well, and it gets a little splitty, but at $2.50 a 100g (I think) skein, who am I to complain?

So other than finishing that hat and starting this one, for just a little more practice, and mindless knitting, I didn't really get anything done this weekend. Well, by not getting things done, I mean in knitting. What did get done was a major trip to the grocery store, a cleaning like our house hasn't seen in awhile, a bunch of cooking, a dinner out with Boyfriend, and an attempt at a Superbowl Party. So you can see why the knitting didn't get much action. Honestly this hat is the most I knit all weekend, and all of this, including cast on, was done during the super bowl. Apart from having a rib where it's 2k, 1p, 2k and having 4 purls in a row in the back (because I can do math, but I can't divide and watch football) the hat is working out well. I now feel very comfortable knitting continental, even on dpns, and doubt that I will go back, except to finish my socks. Don't really want to switch horses mid stream there. I'm still a little iffy on the purling, but by the end of the ribbing here, I was doing it without thinking and the tension was far more even than it was on the wholey ribbed hat. Also, I'm splitting less plies and cursing less too. Good news, all around.

Hoepfully for tomorrows post there will be a finished swatch in the right gauge to be seen. Keep your needles crossed! =)

Oooouuuuffff.

2006-02-03T12:34:00.001-05:00

When I worked in Opera, I worked with a lot of characters. The one that sticks out in my mind was is this odd little Jewish French man (born in Tunisia, no less) named Bernard. He's a director and I have worked with him on two operas with two different companies. He has a rather thick accent and can come off rather insulting. It's because he puts all his feelings out there. It's especially entertaining (after you know him, that is) when he choreographs a scene and the singers haven't the faintest idea what they are doing. He will sit there with an annoyed look on his face and say "ooooouuufff you are a mess! Do eet again, theeze time wiff talent." For the people that had never worked with him before it was utterly insulting that he could dare to come out and say that something they had done was awful. But that was Bernard. Take him or leave him.
Whenever I do something particularly stupid I hear his words echoing in my head. Bernard has pretty much been living with me today. I heard him when I spilt coffee all over my desk and my white shirt before I even got a sip of it, I listened as I realized that I had gotten strawberry jam on the same white shirt, and I sighed as he ringed in my ears as I noticed that I had enough orange cat hair on my pants to spin up, and knit into a cabled sweater for your favorite barrel chested lumber jack, this despite having attacked my pants with the lint roller before leaving the house. It's been that kind of a day, folks, and I mean that in the last-24-hour-period sort of way. I'm hoping it wears off 2pm, which is when it all hit the fan yesterday. I have a feeling I'm not going to be so lucky.

So, in today's theme of a mess I bring you this:

This is my attempt with the Olympic yarn to get 6 sts/inch. It's on my size 5s. I get roughly 5.5 sts an inch, but it's sort of hard to tell . If I squish a little it's six, if I press a little it's 5.5. I don't really know how to be more precise. I'm sure knitting more would help, but I still don't like this swatch, so I figured, why bother?
In the picture it looks pretty dense, but it still feels a little see through, drapey to me. I like the drapey, but would be willing to give it up to get not see through. So, in that vein, I bought size US4 needles yesterday, but that's only .25mm smaller than the 5s. I feel like that would get me gauge for sure, but here we go for the issue with getting gauge. I would like to be ever so slightly, either bigger or smaller than gauge and here's why: The specs for the pattern are for 36" bust or 40" and I'm a 37". I don't want the tank to be tight, but it's already low, low cut and 40" seems like it would be hanging off me. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't have much experience with this. So, in light of this here's the plan. PLEASE tell me if I'm being retarded, or if this is backwards or wrong:
I'm hoping to get slightly more than 6 sts per inch by using the US4 (and really, if necessary, go down to 3s. I promise to swatch if the plan makes sense), also this will make a denser fabric which makes me happy, and I plan to knit the 40" size. In theory it would come out slightly smaller than the 40" and it would be denser than if I had gotten gauge and knit the 36". Is there logic in this plan? Do I have it backwards? Am I asking too many questions?
Don't answer that last one. =)
------------

And because I have the blasted pictures, and because it's the only place where my knitting is making any progress whatsoever, I give you pictures of another continental practice hat.

Last night was really busy so I only got one hour of knitting time. So, this is what one hour of 2x2 continental looks like, progress wise. Honestly, I don't know if it's fast or slow, but I do like knowing what an hour of work on something looks like. I might do this more in the future for my own reference - especially considering I'm so bad at gauging how long something will take.

Obviously I'm still trying to work out this whole purling thing. I think it's harder to learn the second time because you have to fight your urge to try to do it the way you're used too. It's also harder to manage the difference in tension with my knits and my purls in continental because I'm not able to constantly tug the working yarn with out stopping, tugging, and going at it again. I'm trying to figure out how to keep even tension and not have to re-situate myself every freaking stitch. It's a process, for sure, but at least - despite it's splitiness - Wool-ease is really, really visually forgiving. You have no idea how many mistakes are in there that you can't see. "Oooouufff it eeze a mess!" But you can't tell!
Perfect. =)

Out of Control

2006-02-02T16:58:00.000-05:00

My job has been absolutely, positively, COMPLETELY out of control today. I have pictures and everything ready to post, but it's just going to have to wait.

Olympic Yarn

2006-02-01T15:40:00.000-05:00

For your viewing pleasure here is my order from Kaliedescope Yarns. That's 7 skeins of Plymouth Wildflower DK in Ociean and 1 skein of the discontinued Mission Falls 1824 wool in Raisin. The blue is for the silk camisole in LMKG and the purple is for some fingerless glove thingies from Wendy's site. (Let us not discuss how I just found a site that offerred more skeins of the DK for less money, because that will just upset me. I plan to pretend like that never happened.)
One of the skeins has already been unwrapped and had an attempt at a gauge swatch. For you to laugh at, I present exhibit A:
How anyone could get gauge using the specifications in the book is beyond me. While the compositions of the yarn that I chose versus the one specified are different, but they have the exact same specified gauge - that being 5.5 sts per inch using US 6. That makes perfect sense to me. I might not get that, but it's about right for sport weight. No? Well LMKG specifies 6 sts. per inch on size 7s. Does that make any sense whatsoever? Do you think you could get that? I know there isn't a snowballs chance in hell that I will get near that, but I tried anyhow. What you see here is an overly drapey, see right through it, hope you are wearing a bra or you're not in public, 4 sts per inch - and that's unstretched. That's not "hey let me reach over there and tug on my tank top a little bit and see what happens" it's "let me sit perfectly still and hope no one gets a view that they don't really need, hope my father never sees me in this shirt". Total silliness. At least I tried it without laughing too hard. I think I'll try US 5 now. Normally I would have no problem doing it on US 6 - that's the Addi 6 of 4mm not the Crystal Palace of 4.25mm - but since I'm doing this continental thing now, I've loosened up quite a bit and will have to go down needle sizes now. I'm glad for that because I'd so much rather go down a size than up. Large needles make me hurt.
After I get gauge I'm going to wash it and dry it to make sure it keeps it's shape and all. It's cotton, but it's also acrylic, so I'm not really worried about it stretching or shrinking - but this is for the Olympic KAL, so there's no room for error really.
Also, I'd like to note in advance that this top is in the 6 hour section of the book, and I laugh at that. This yarn, while lovely and soft, is splitty as hell and is going to require major attention. It's like someone took their favorite sewing thread and plied 80 peices together. I'm sure it will make a lovely top, but the chances of me working with it again after this a very low.
Onto more yarn! This is that stuff that I told you about for the elephant toy. This is the "exclusively for Joann's collection". It's a wool, cotton, nylon blend. I think it will be lovely to work with, but it's going on the proverbial shelf until after the hats that I have in the works and the Olympics, um, and the sock, and...nevermind. It's really planned as a Mother's Day present (I'll explain later why that makes any sense), so I've got plenty of time to work it out.

And lastly, if you ever doubt the difficulty of trying to get a decent picture in my house, I give you this:

This is how close my lovely assistant/stealer and eater of all things wool felt that she needed to be to really provide her input.
I fell over no less than two times in an effort to protect the camera in one hand and the yarn at my feet while taking this picture. Lucky for me, the cat did not feel the need to also be involved in today's picture extravaganza.

Yesterdays post, today...

2006-01-31T12:28:00.000-05:00

Here is the post that I hoped to get out yesterday, but that didn't so much work out. Here I give you my Continetal Hat. It's the pattern from LMKG. I haven't a clue about how many stitches I cast on. I attempted a multiple of 8 as required in the pattern, but I lost a stitch somewhere and ended up having to skip a decrease. I wasn't worried since this was a training hat and not about the FO.
I knit this almost entirely in Continental. I cast on using the long-tail in an effort to practice that too. Then after getting half way around with major struggling on the first row, I switched to my right hand to get through the first round. I always have issues with that first row, no matter how loosely I try to cast on. This is why I used a needle size up to cast on the sock. That helped tremendously.
Anyhow, I did the rest Continental until the last three rows. There I had to switch to dpns, and I am just learning how to manipulate those, and didn't have the energy to figure that out too. Plus my hands hurt like hell from the cotton, and the fact that I spent the first part with my hands all clenched up trying to get the weird movements to make sense. As you can see in the middle of this pic, I really loosened up. Definately too much. I learned that working this way needs to be thought of as a completely different technique and not at all approached in the same way as the English Method. Once I let go of trying to insert my needle in the loop the same way, or hold the yarn wrapped around my left hand the way I do my right, then it got easier. I was also able to relax my gauge a lot more and found that it is possible to make even stitches without making everything so tight. This will make Deb happy =)
Overall, I'm very pleased with this test project. I really, really enjoyed knitting this way (In fact, last night I cast on another hat (same pattern) in Wool-ease to practice some more. I'm basically making the Grandpa Hat again so that I can learn to purl as well. I'm only a few stitches in, so I'll update you on that later.) It just seems to fit me better. Oddly, I found it easier and more intuitive to being a right-handed person because all of the loop manipulation is really done by maneuvering your right hand. If that makes any sense at all.

And in the world of sock progress, here is a picture:

Warning - stripes may be more obvious in picture than in real life

This is from a couple of days ago, but all you need do is imagine an extra inch and a half, and you'll have it. I hope to finish the calf and get to the heel tonight. Deb has had some very useful, albeit not really English to me yet, advice, and I'm greatly appreciative. These socks will be made on a wing and a prayer, but the next ones might actually have some wisdom and brain power put into them thanks to the fabulous people in blogland!

Tune in tomorrow when I will have gobs of yarn porn from my order that came. Yay!

Exhibitng stashing behavior...

2006-01-30T15:29:00.000-05:00

I apologize in advance for the absolute randomness and non flowing nature of this post. Despite what I may claim later about why it's so bad, I was not, in fact, drunk while typing.

This post was supposed to be about my weekend activites involving sock progress, cotton yarn and teaching myself to knit continental. It was supposed to show you the pink hat that I made to teach myself to hold the yarn in the other hand. The hat that I managed to make in six hours. The hat that nearly killed my hands due to cotton yarn from hell. However, this cannot happen today because despite the fact that I took pictures this morning, loaded them on the computer and mailed them to myself, when I got to work there were no pictures in my inbox. Boo.
I also ran a virus scan at that time, but I had the internet explorer window open, which is probably a no no, and I imagine that my computer at home is all pissed off and has an error message up about the situation. I had planned on checking on it when I went back for the sock, a picture of which is also in the unsent email, however I failed to go back for the sock. Therefore I got no email and the sock got no attention. Now the sock is angry too. Currently my office is full of pissed off things. When I get home, I'll have to open the door and send the cat in first as a safety measure. That way if something jumps out, at least it won't be me. Don't look at me like that, she's not my cat, she runs fast, and she could really use the exercise =P
So, onto what I can write about today....more yarn purchased. Pay no mind to the yarn that I have coming in the mail soon, ~~hopefully today, but you didn't hear that from me because if I say that it won't come and I really want it to come today~~ and the random Cascade 220 whose color I liked in the store but then decided that it was wrong for the recipient, and the leftovers from the Christmas knitting and the blanket, and the fingering weight - not suitable for socks - yarn that has no purpose in life, and the.... well you get the picture. Anyhow, I bought more yarn. I mean, I have something in mind for the yarn. I specifically went shopping for the yarn. But the other yarn at home had a purpose when it was purchased too, and now it has none. So what I'm trying to say is, and I'm not really sure how this happened, but I think I have a stash-ette. I'm not proud of this - and yet I'm hording yarn. Shhhh, tell no one, especially not Boyfriend about all the yarn floating around the house. I have him, and myself partially, fooled about how much yarn one can actually amass in five months, on a virtually non existent budget. I'm to the point of purchasing a container for the yarn to ~~hide~~ keep it. Something not clear, so you couldn't see what was contained inside. Something to mask the stashing behavior within. Something that would fit cleverly in the closet in the office where Boyfriend is not allowed to tread because the gifts are stowed there.
If you are wondering why I would want to cleverly conceal my stashing behavior, let me clarify. Firstly, ~~I'm in denial~~ I am not yet ready to admit that I have one, and secondly I make fun of Boyfriend's pack rat-edness constantly, and if he knew that I was stashing something, anything, it could be used against me in a court of law before a jury of our pets. As I am constantly fighting the packy-ness of Boyfriend in order to not have to repeatedly move large boxes of loose change and old receipts, I cannot bear to have anything to be used against me. So, non clear, cleverly concealed boxes it is.

Anyhow, back to the yarn! I have been thinking about what yarn to use for the elephant from LMKG, and I haven't been able to decide. I know that I absolutlely refuse to use two peices of sportweight doubled. I'm sure there is a rhyme and reason to this, but considering you are supposed to use the same yarn doubled, I don't really care what the reason is. I decided to simply buy worsted weight yarn which is what the gauge calls for. So, I looked around at Joann's, Michael's and AC Moore and finally decided to screw the fact the elephants generally come in gray and buy blue and white variegated yarn. It's the Joann's collection and I think it's called Dolcetta. It's a wool/cotton/nylon mix made with one chunky ply. I thought of Lion Brand Jiffy, which supposedly is mohair like, and wool ease, but none of them were soft enough. The Joann's yard was cuddly and I like the random-ness of the colors. I thought about a pink elephant, but the pink they had made me a little queasy, so blue it is.
I also bought a lovely sea foam green skein of wool ease to make another hat. Really it's to practice the continental knitting, and that's the best way for me to do it. It's also a good thing for me to have something small (the sock) and something else big on the needles to keep my hands from cramping up, so I'll probably cast this puppy on tonight and split my time with the sock and it. Just please don't tell the sock, I don't need it to get madder than it already is.

The Hard Way

2006-01-26T12:47:00.000-05:00

First I would like to thank everyone for their nice comments about my Mom. She is doing well. I spoke to her last night, and she was still pretty shaken. Apparently the car didn't end perpendicular to traffic, she ended facing traffic straight on - in the form of several mack trucks. Pretty scary stuff. I told her to eat chocolate and take a sleeping pill - the perfect remedy for bad memories. =)
-----

So, I ordered yarn for the silk camisole from LMKG. I know I was pretty sure about doing Bad Penny, but I couldn't go through with it for some reason. I literally had the yarn in my cart at WEBS and just couldn't complete the order. I really want a variegated, not completely cotton, yarn that isn't $20 a skein. At the moment, said goal is unattainable, so I'm going with the camisole, which was really the first choice to begin with. In case you're wondering, I went with the Ocean color. It's already on it's way today from Kaliedescope yarns. I'm very excited that it got shipped so quickly, and relieved that I've pretty much settled on a project. Well mostly.....
You know me, I have to have options and so the option is this tank top from knitty.
I like the shape of this top and will likely make it in the future, regardless of when that future is. I would really like to have a shinier, fancier if you will, yarn to work it in, but I think it would make a nice business casual summer top as well. If that's what I decide, so be it. That will all be worked out in the swatching. As it is, I've ordered enough to make either one, so I'm good to go. Decision prcrastinated!

As you may know the tank top is for Stephanie's Olympic ~~suicidal~~ KAL. Seeing as how there are so many teams to join for the KAL, and since I'm not really doing a sweater, I've decided this is my real team. I have to my two mediums of choice, those being coffee and diet coke. I'll be stocking up on both before the opening cermonies. More team alternatives involving other vices are here. Hopefully the yarn will be here in time to knit gauge swatches and obtain needles that all match in size. What an interesting concept, no? I never know my gauge, so this should be really interesting.

Onto progress, not that it's that visible....
I had very little time to work on this baby last night. I finished the 15 rounds I thought I was supposed to do at lunch yesterday, and it turned out to be 16. Read the instructions, Jes! C'mon, how hard is this? See, I just see numbers and memorize them. I fail to notice the verbs and adjectives surrounding them. As in, knit this row 15 more times. Doh! Better than having done too many, imo. Too many, is my usual MO, though, sadly. So, I did my one more round and started the calf part of the sock. You can sort of see where that is in the pic, it starts right under the second lavendar stripe - it's hard to tell since they are both ribbed. I measured the cuff to make sure that it was the right size before moving on. It was in fact the right size - this made me nervous. You may think to yourself that I'm doing good and not understand my nerves. Really, who ever complained about being spot on? The reason is that I have gone UP a needle sized to compensate for my foot being a bit on the large size. Getting gauge with a larger needle only further proves my knitting-too-tightedness and makes me wonder if this is going to work out. My only saving grace is the fact that some ribbing continues on the foot and that there may yet be a way to save myself, post heel. Even if there isn't, I intend to continue deluding myself. If this sock doesn't work out, I plan to hang it on the wall so that I can just look at it and touch it. I'm totally enamoured with Lorna's laces and this colorway. I do not, however, recommend this for your first sock. The dark parts are hard to see, but I'm marching forward anyway. As per usual, I insist on doing everything the hard way.

Grateful

2006-01-25T16:08:00.000-05:00

First thing this morning I get a call from my Mom's boyfriend telling me that she had been in a near fatal accident this morning. On her way to work she hit some black ice on the entrance ramp to I-83. For those of you not familiar with the MD/PA area, that is one big highway, like 95, and it's a major trucking lane. Her car skidded straight ahead instead of following the curve of the exit and she landed perpendicular to the highway in front of a truck. She's okay, but all shook up. I'm a little turned around at the thought that I almost lost my Mom this morning. I don't know what I'd do without her. For virtually all of my teenage years all we had was eachother. Most of her family had died and I was an only child (on that side. I have 4 half siblings from my Dad). It was just her and I in the house alone. Me struggling to grow up and get good grades and meet boys (how you do this in an all girls school is still beyond me), and her trying to be a single mother and raise her child the best she could. When I think about all the things that she went through, raising a child while going to Nursing school and working, then managing to take care of a fiesty teen age daughter and care for her own ailing mother, then sending her only child off to school 800 miles away and having to deal with a truly empty nest, all while keeping her sanity and never compromising her relationship with me or anyone of her friends or family, I'm astonished. She is an amazing, giving, kind, wonderful woman. She is truly fabulous in every sense of the word, a strong role model, and a loving friend.
I couldn't be more grateful for whatever split second that she made up for this morning that caused her miss that accident.
---------------------
In knitting news, I have cast on (repeatedly) for my sock. Beth asked how I would pick a pattern with so many good ones! I totally agree that if I had a clue about how to knit socks, I'd be at a loss too. However, this being my first sock, I went with easy. That narrowed the field to the ribbed socks that start the book off. There's an explanation and picture with of each kind of heal and toe and I picked the ones that I liked the most. Luckily the Oak Ribbed sock has both the heal and toe that I think will work for me, so I'm going with that one. In the future I plan to try all three ribbed variations to see what I truly love, but you got to start somewhere. So this picture is the beginning of the sock. I worked on it durning lunch and got to the required 15 rounds for the cuff. I haven't measured it yet, but it looks about right. The pattern calls for size 1s, but I decided to go up a needle size since the measurements were for a size 8-9 shoe and I wear a 9. I just don't want a tight sock. Plus, while my length measurements were the same as the pattern, the ball of my foot is almost a full inch wider around. I was hoping it would be the other way around since it's fairly easy to just do a few more rows to make the sock longer. I don't know how it works on the foot after the heel, if there's any convenient way to add stitches down at that part or if it's frog central if you get there and it's too tight. We'll see. Right now I have no major rush for any of it. I'm enjoying the process. Hear that Marjene?? Despite my general finish or perish sense about me, after rushing through all that Christmas knitting and getting geared up to knit to Olympic proportions, I'm taking the tortoise route on this. I know the chances of the sock working out the first time are slim, so I'm not getting my hopes up. That makes it a lot easier to frog at the end of the day (or toe as the case may be).

FO: My first hat

2006-01-24T16:37:00.000-05:00

Yarn: Less than 1 skein of Cascade 220. It looked steel gray to me in the store, but it's really a very gray blue.
Needles: Crystal Palace US 6 bamboo 16" circs.
Gauge: Oooo, I know this one for once. 5.5 sts per inch.
Pattern: Kim's Hat from Last Minute Knitted Gifts
Measurements: It fit my 21 inch head, but was a little big and it fit Boyfriend's 22 inch head with room to spare
Notes: This pattern was awesome. I just added 8 stitches to the biggest size to compensate and didn't bother doing an extra decrease, and it worked out just fine. I didn't count how many stitches I ended up pulling tight, but as you can see from the pic below, it didn't leave any extra gap to worry about. I like this pattern so much that I'll be doing it again. I had to pry the hat out of Boyfriend's hands and promise to make him one so that I could get it back.

Having finished the hat I had cleared out all the WIPs, which is great, but meant I had some preparation to do before I could knit again. So last night I set out to ball up my Lorna's Laces and see if I could get the long tail cast on figured out and done for one of the socks. So, I pulled out the hank and untwisted it, grateful that it was big enough to go over my chair that stands in for a swift. Ofcourse after I put it over the chair I realized that I didn't have an end to put into the ball winder. Hrm, there's no end, they must have tied it together, but ther were two knots. I cut one of them, but I guess it was the wrong one and ended up having to take the partially wound ball off the winder at least 10 times to clear up the knots. I eventually took the damn winder off the table and worked out all the loops. After about an hours work I got it into a ball, but then had no time to knit. Oh well. Here's my plan for tonight =)

And Jordan wants to know why Mommy has to go to work so early. She'd rather stay in bed...

Apologies in Advance

2006-01-23T16:36:00.000-05:00

My apologies in advance for this having, mostly, nothing to do with knitting...

That's the sign they should have stuck out in front of the mall for me today.

You know, you have a bad day. You get to work late. Your hair is a mess, despite having washed it that morning. Your clothes don't fit right - your pants seem to short, your shirt too long. It's raining. You're wearing your rain coat that isn't exactly slimming. You're just not together.

So on your lunchbreak you head for some retail therapy. You've got giftcards burning a hole in your pocket, and for once, you remembered to stick them in your purse. A miracle. Until you get to the mall and the store for which you have these gift cards is all locked up, the overhead gate and all, with a sign out front that they have a temporary location and, by the way, it's not open today. Damn!
So you go other places, for other things you need, but can't seem to find. A pair of jeans that wouldn't require you to sell an organ to pay for, or a pair of business pants that doesn't need to be ironed thirty seconds after you put them on. Or, something easier, a purse. Just a purse that goes over your head that doesn't measure it's capacity in gallons. Something, simple. Black, canvas, not too fussy. Ofcourse, if you're having my day, all you can find is gold lame (as in la-may, but it is pretty lame too). Or worse cute bags but covered in enough metal to send the metal detector off a half mile before you get near it and a "G" emblem so large that even the cheesiest of Texas cowboys would turn it down as too gaudy for a belt buckle.
A simple black or brown or any non metalic, over the shoulder purse was all I was asking, but apparently that's not cool these days. I missed the part where Maryland turned into South Beach on a party night. Why do long straps mean the bag has to be big enough to tote the kitchen sink along with you?
I guess I've just had my head in the sand too long, but why is it that I can go into Banana Republic and buy a pair of suit pants for way less than a pair of jeans? Why are there 13 year olds running around in jeans and a tee with a sequined bag? Do people now take canvas and leather out on the town and leave their sequins for every day occaisions, or are we skipping fabrics altogether? When did gold lame go from gauche to glam? And who do I have to see about getting that fixed??

---------------------------

Okay, sorry for the rant, but I'm having one of those days. I fear it will turn into one of those weeks. I'm sorry to say that either the blog will see the action, or there will be no posts. Either way, fasten your seat belts we're in for a bumpy ride.

But, I digress - onto the knitting. I have no picture for you today because I finished very late last night. What did I finish you ask? Why it was a hat! Are you stunned? You should be, because it doesn't suck. Plus I did it in little over a day. I'm pretty happy with that. I spent all day Saturday in bed. All I managed to knit was the ribbing at the bottom and a couple of rows of stockinette. It went like this: Knit half a row, get dizzy, go to sleep, wake up an hour later, knit four stitches, realize I'm not better, fall back asleep. Not good, but I made up for it on Sunday by knitting like a fiend. Results in tomorrow's ~~not so angry~~ post

FO: The hat that never happened

2006-01-20T14:53:00.000-05:00

I would like to introduce you to the Hat that Never Happened - it shall be herein referred to as the HTNH. It may look innocent enough at first, but upon further examination you will see that looks can be deceiving. It would like you to think that it might fit a human, any human, but I dare say that it would be loose on Andre the Giant - if he were still with us.
This hat is huge, nay gargantuan, and beyond that it is riddled with unfixable errors. When one commits to a stitch pattern involving "knit into the stitch bellow", one really commits. You are saying that you hereby agree that once you have done the stitch that you are willing to move on with your life, regardless of whether you were supposed to or not. You are taking this silent oath:

"I, the knitter, shall accept that this stitch cannot be undone without a serious committment to frogging or quality time with a crochet hook. I will be dilligent and pay attention to the knitting, regardless of how good "Lost" is, and will not accidentally do the stitch two stitches in a row or split the plies of the stitch below. I recognize the seriousness of this committment and understand that if it does not turn out correctly that I am wholly to blame."

I perhaps should have considered this oath before I entered into this stitch pattern. I should have done some reasearch, I should have swatched! I know that I have done wrong and that when the pattern went awry, I should have fixed it, but I didn't.
I also should have done my math with a calculator. I should have consulted patterns that state that a reasonable amount of stitches for a normal male head is around 88 stitches. I should considered that perhaps 128 stitches of worsted weight yarn, may have been a little excessive. I should have used my noodle, but I didn't.
It is not the hats fault that it is made so wrong. In fact, I apologize to hat for trying to make it something it's not. I admit that I did intentionally wash this hat made of 100% feltable wool, in hot water and did maliciously, with intent to shrink, toss it with wreckless abandon into the dryer on high. Unforunately my efforts were fruitless. The hat got no smaller. All that torture for naught.

And so, having ~~maybe~~ definately learned my lesson, I will ~~someday~~ soon cast on for another hat, worked from the botton up. I plan to use 2x2 ribbing, which I can actually read, instead of a non-reparable pattern that doesn't speak to me. I will only cast on 88-92 stitches, and I will knit according to the pattern, and not on a whim. I will never show this hat to my Grandfather. The HTNH shall only be refferred to as that, as it does not resemble anything that Susan needs to know about. The pattern is lovely, the knitter is to blame.

So please, go on with your days, speak of this to no one. If you must refer to this hat, please use the accronym, this will ease the pain of stupidity that I feel.

Move along, nothing to see here.....

Yay for Yarn!

2006-01-18T16:50:00.000-05:00

Here is the fabulous package that I got yesterday from Kaleidescope Yarns. I ordered this sometime last week and have been waiting for it. Especially since this past Saturday I got my shipment from Amazon that included Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush. I'm going to try one of the simpler patterns out of there for my first sock. I plan to use the Lorna's Laces for this because it has plenty of yardage per skein and I won't have to worry about running out with a top down pattern on my big ol' feeties. Most of the patterns in this book are for sizes 8-9 and my feet are a 9, but I just don't like tight socks. I figure by adding a couple of rows on the foot part, and maybe going up a needle size or adding a couple stiches around should make the whole thing work out. Since I have no concept of how long I can make them without worrying about yardage, I figured I should use the Lorna's ample yardage to figure this out. Also, I picked out this color of the Koigu specifically for the Elfine Socks. I just liked that colorway for such a "woodsy" sock. These are magic loop toe up, so I can make them until I run out of yarn, which makes me happy. That way I don't waste any of this yummy yarn.
As soon as I figure out what's going on with the darn Grandpa hat, I will cast on for some socks. I can't wait. It might happen sooner than figuring out the hat, since I so brilliantly planned for a hat where you could roll up the brim and then did it in a non reversable stitch. Yeah, I'm real proud of that choice. I've got a little thinking about how to get myself out of this one without frogging back forever or going forward and making it look totally stupid. At this point, I'd rather bind this puppy off, give it away, and start a new one, rather than trying to fix the one I made. Sad but true.
Anyhow, that's all from me today. I have made some decisions about yesterdays post. I'm fairly certain I'll be waiting for the Knit Picks to get the color for the tank top, get the Longmeadow yarn for the Bad Penny, and using the Elann Alpaca for the Hourglass, but I haven't ordered anything yet. My decisions are never official until the shipment leaves the store. =)

Decisions, decisions....

2006-01-17T15:42:00.000-05:00

This is going to be a very link heavy post....get ready.

As usual, I'm having a hard time making up my mind when it comes to yarn. No big shock, here. I've got three projects lining up in the queue and I'm trying to get yarn in for them. I'm going to break them down with some links to possible yarn, and any input on the yarn, or the pattern, or whatever, would totally be appreciated.

1. Silk Camisole from Last Minute Knitted Gifts

The specs: The yarn calls for is Fiesta Yarns La Luz, which is lovely, but very expensive and dry clean only. These are two things that just don't work for me. I don't to go and knit something that I won't wear because I don't want to clean it. That, and if you get silk wet, not even in washing it, it gets dull spots. I'm just too messy for that.

Yardage: 840 yards
Gauge: 24sts x 26 rows = 4" on US 7. 6 sts per inch. Basically sportweight.
Yarns I'm looking into:
Knitpicks Shine - My issue here is that the only color I really like for this knit is not going to be in until the end of Feb. Boo, I say, boo.
Dale of Norway Svale - I like Dale yarns. I felt some Baby Ull this weekend and it is superb. I already have Stork, which I bitched and moaned about. I take that all back. This looks like a good deal, but I was hoping for a dark blue. The lavender is nice, though.
Plymouth DK Wildflower - Great palette(I like the Ocean color), great price, seems all good. Just not sure how I feel about the acrylic. I have a tendency to be allergic to acrylic. Having said that, I'm mostly allergic to it around my neck. This tank top is no where around your neck.
Reynolds Saucy Sport - Love the Pine color, but I'm worried about mercerized cotton. Talk about no stretch. Hard on the fingers and I'm worried about it being form fitting enough.

2. Bad Penny from Knitty

This is sort of my alternative to the silk camisole as a first garment. Basically, if I can't come up with a yarn that I'm sure about, I'll do this pattern in the mean time, and do the camisole while I await the River color to come into Knit Picks. (As I side note, I know that I'm doing my garments ass backwards based on the seasons of the mid-atlantic, however, they are going well with my learning of knitting. I'm trying to not put the cart before the horse like I usually do).
Anyhow, I've heard some good things about this pattern, and it looks like something that would fit me well. The thing is that if it's going to be short sleeved, it can't have any wool in it, or I can't wear it. Also, I worry about it being out of Alpaca, because that would be too warm, and all cotton would make for shaping issues, just like the tank top. Are we seeing a problem here?

Yardage: 721 yards - 437 of the MC and 284 of the CC
Gauge: 20 sts for 32 rows = 4" 5 sts an inch. US 7 needles. Worsted Weight
Yarns:
Cascade Pima Melange - Pretty colors, but none of them are varigated. I like the two color thing that Stefanie does, but I'd be happy to have two different solid colors instead. I am worried about the 100% cotton thing.
Cascade Pima Tencel - A good option, but no variegation.
Feza Cekor - This is a bit of a long shot, but it looks like it would be interesting to try. It meets a bunch of the criteria, but it's a little out there.
Needful Yarns Kim - Looks like a good option, especially because there's also Kelly, and they go together. I basically get my cake and eat it too. I'm only slightly worried about the acrylic, but this is shaping up to be a good option.
Reynolds Saucy - Nice colors, but no variegation. 100% cotton.
Valley Yarns Longmeadow - This looks a nice option, just no varigation.

3. Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts (don't make me link it again)

There is a whole KAL devoted to this, so you would think I wouldn't have a problem figuring this out by myself, but I do. As usual

Yardage: 1100 yards. Ofcourse that's what the pattern says. However, Purlsoho has a note stating that many people have run out of yarn based on the pattern specs. This leads me to believe that I should order more like 1300 yards or so.
I'm also hoping for a slightly varigated yarn, more like the kettle dyed look, really. I just want something to add a little interest to the look.
Gauge: 19 sts x 28 rows = 4" 4.75 sts an inch. US 7 needles. Worsted weight.
Yarns:
Brown Sheep Worsted - Lots of colors, big hanks, good price. There's even a little bit of variegation in there. I'm just a little worried about the fussiness of the mohair. Not much, just a little.
Cascade 220 - I have an affinity for this yarn. I am worried though, because it has an icky tendency to grow once it's blocked. I'm not sure I want to deal with that, but you can't beat the color selection. It is a little scratchier wool than I was hoping for.
Classic Elite Four Seasons Cotton - A good option, but I'd have to buy 15 or more balls, which gets pricey. The yardage is a little stingy. Not sure how I feel about this much cotton.
Dale Freestyle - It's Dale, it's cheap, it's got a good color range. Just no variegation.
Elisabeth Lavold Cable Cotton - 100% cotton, but it's heavier. I've seen this in person and it is nice, but there's no variegation, and it's stingy yardage. Just no cling-ness about it, though.
Plymouth Encore - Like the colors, but I'm not sure how I feel about that much acrylic.
Plymouth Suri Merino - This looks like a pretty good deal. I like the colors. I'm also fond of Alpaca/Merino blends.
Dale Sisik - It's Dale, it's tweedy, it's an otpion. I'm pretty sure I like that first color, I just fear that's a little yellowish. I do not look good in yellowish browns.
Elann Peruvian Collection Pure Alpaca - This looks like a good option. I like the Heathery brown, it's alpaca, which I love, and it doesn't look too delicate. I'd need a truckload of balls, but at least it's a great price.

Okay, that's it. I'm sorry for so many options, but I'm just one of those people that has to explore everything that once. If you've used any of these yarns or doen any of these patterns and have anything good or bad to say, I'd LOVE to hear about it. In the meantime I have a lot of deliberating to do. However, I'd better hurry. My plan is to do the cami or Bad Penny for Stephanie's KAL which is coming up really fast. I have to order soon for at least one of those options. Eek!

Clearly, I'm out of my mind...

2006-01-16T16:18:00.000-05:00

Let me demonstrate:

Exhibit A: I signed up for this.

Sure, it's my first KAL, and I'm planning on doing my first garment. I'm pretty sure that's enough to send me to the nut house as it is, but just for good measure, read what I did yesterday.

Exhibit B:
On Saturday night I was working on my Grandfather's hat and it occurred to me that it might be getting a little big. The plan was for it to be 22" at the crown and then be a nice stretchy fabric. I had it figured and I come to needing 42 sts on each needle. Sound a bit much to you? It should. It would have made a 32" hat. Good math skills, huh? Ofcourse, I didn't bother to check my math until I was up to 40 sts. a needle and realized that there's no way that I should exhaust the length of 4 7 1/2" long needles and have the hat be the right size. I do my math again, this time with a calculator instead of scratching numbers into the couch armrest, cuz that's, well, the smart-and-not-lazy-dumbass way to do it. Not that I would be that foolish. *ahem* Sooo, after typing in my gauge and all that, over and over, because clearly I was right on the couch and the computer MUST be wrong, I realized that I might be fault. Knowing there was no freaking way to tink back, I just riiiiipped back to 32 sts and proceeded to put it on my circular needle. Ofcourse, silly me thought that you could put a 22" hat on 24" needles and not have issues. Wrong again. So after working the specified 3 rounds before pattern, I gave up and decided to go to a LYS on Sunday. Two were open from 12-5 so I figured one of them would have it. Now, it would have been too bright of me to call first and see if they had the needles, but I had never been to Stitch DC before, so it was a good excuse to go. Plus it was close to our house. Sure bet, right? I can put it off and do stuff around the house instead of going early and getting what I needed, right? Or not. Ofcourse they had had an end run on needles like you wouldn't believe, AND the shipment that should have been there Friday wasn't getting there until Tuesday. Did I mention it was 4pm already? And that the other store was on the opposite side of DC? Did I also mention that I figured I could make it? *Sigh*

So, while I would have like to stayed and looked around more, I bolted instead. It was a lovely store, but packed full of knitters. People were in every room, even sitting on the floor. I wouldn't have been able to really see anything, anyway. So I leap into my car, fly onto the highway and floor it to the other side of DC. It should only take a half hour, right? Or not. I get to the location who's parking lot consists of 8 spaces that they share with Starbucks, no less. Needless to say that I've never even seen a space open there. Oh, and there's a big mall right up the street that has pretty much no parking. Do you see the problem? But I figure I can get a space. Did I mention it's 4:45 already? So I circle the block trying to figure out what to do. I'm one car late for no less than 2 parking spaces and start freaking out. I'm thinking of double parking, or illegal parking, or, can I get my car to circle the block for me? No auto pilot - foiled again. Then I see a spot "for customers only" for a tiny beer/wine shoppe that's on the other side of the building and I pull in. Hoping that no one sees me in the store and gets angry that I don't become a customer, I scurry through the drive thru atm lane of the bank to get to the other side of the building, dash up the stairs, and into the shop. Thankfully they didn't close 10 minutes early or I would have been out of luck. I grab the needles I need, lament that they are more than I thought they would be, purchase, shove them in my purse, dash out the door, and hop in my car hoping no one at the shouldn't-even-be-allowed-to-be-open-on-a-sunday-liquor-store sees me. Merrily I get the hell out of DC and go home. I am slightly annoyed about driving all over trying to get a set of needles, but relieved at actually attaining them against the odds. After I get home and take care of the pup I pull the damn Holy Grail of needles out of my purse and think 4.25mm, is that right? I thought it was 4mm....hmmm.
Well, I guess it depends on who you talk to. If you talk to Addi or Brittany, they will tell you that it's 4mm, if you talk to Crystal, she will tell you a US 6 is 4.25mm. On a side note: why do the needle companies sound like strippers? Is this some sublimal message thing? Anyhow, at that point I just gave up. There will be nothing even about the gauge on this hat. The top is knit on 4 dpns at 4mm, three rows are knit on Addi circs at 4mm, and now the rest will be knit on 4.25 circs. I'm thinking this project might be doomed, but I'm going to continue forward and pretend like everything is okay, and when it's not, I plan to actually find out my Grandfather's hat size and knit something correctly for him.

I'm pretty sure eithe rone of these is enough to put me in the nut house. We won't talk about the implications of what they mean together.

Paraskevidekatriaphobia

2006-01-13T15:39:00.000-05:00

Okay, how sad is it that I just noticed that it's Friday the 13th. I'm really out of it lately. I'm not especially superstitious, so it's like it matters. This does prove a certain obliviousness that I am not fond of, but does comes in handy sometimes. But I regress, er...digress?? Anyhow, let's move on.

This is a picture of my progress so far on the hat. I think this is pretty good, especially once you consider that I had been using 3 dpns, and decided that for my Grandfather's larger than usual melon, I would need to increase way faster. Also, while the slightly, pointy, my hat it has three corners look is cute on a kid or a woman, it's not cutting it for the 70-something retired surgeon. So, I ripped out the progress (I had gotten up to 42 stitches or so), and cast on again. I'm going to doing this cast on in my sleep pretty soon. (Speaking of this cast on, I was wondering if this was roughly the way one does the crochet-provisional cast on? Only with a different yarn, instead of around the working yarn. If it isn't, I think I might be on to something...) Then I spent the rest of the night working round and round, making stitches left and right. This is one dpn short of an increase. I find that to be a good stopping place. That way I know exactly which dpn to start with, which direction I'm going, and what I should do next. This is good since I'm not quite able to figure out to read the knitting yet. I just know that those cute lines that make the x are there because of the increases. So far I think it looks pretty good and that I have miles left to go. I'm thinking that this hat needs to measure at least 23 inches and be in a very stretchy stitch that is yet to be determined. I'm also thinking that I'm not going to have much of a choice but to switch to a circular needle. I'm hoping to be able to finish the increases before I have to switch, so as to not confuse myself (Is that increase before or after the marker? Am I on a plain row on an increse row? Where the hell did I leave my brain?) I'm just sayin'.
So, considering this is my last Christmas gift to finish (blush), I've been thinking alot about my next projects. The only thing I've ever knit for myself (you know, cuz I've been knitting soooo long, pffft) was that ugly garter stitch scarf I made. You, know the one that will only see the light of day from the window that it is near? Yeah, that one. So, in light of this fact, and the loads and loads of things I need to learn, I've developed a bit of a plan. I want to start with some smaller projects like socks which is why I've ordered Knitting Vintage Socks. I plan to do my first sock from there. I am also interested in the 2 socks on 2 circs method and the magic loop, so I'm thinking about doing these afterwards. In that same dpn and 2 circ vein I'm thinking of doing the little elephant doll from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. My mom has collected Elephants for most of her life, and this guy is just so adorable. I thought it would make a nice easter or mother's day present. I'm investigating the whole thing now. I also think with some cunning and pattern manipulation that I could make an Eyore doll - with a removable tail and all. My aunt loves Eyore, and I think that making that would be lots of fun.
Also in the queue are the camisole and the hourglass sweater from LMKG book. I'm looking into this yarn for the cami and this one for the hourglass. I was looking into shine as an option for the cami, but I'm just not fond of too many of the colors. It's what I made the baby blanket out of, and I'm kind of sick of it right now. I want to branch out a bit. I have already bought the baby cashmere yarn from elann, and while it didn't end up being knit as I had planned, it's still a wonderful yarn and is sitting in my stash-ette. Plus, you can't beat those prices =) Especially considering that my hands really want to make the hourglass out of Rowan calmer or cashsoft, or other fabulous yarn by them, but seeing as how my wallet doesn't have a death wish, I'm improvising.

I fought the tree, and the tree won

2006-01-12T15:30:00.000-05:00

Here is a shameful picture of my doggie, taken this summer. I have no knitting to show you, so I've decided to sway you to read this entry with her puppy cuteness. Is it working?

I mean this title in more ways than one.

First: The Christmas tree
I did manage to take down all the ornaments on the dreaded tree of dooooom, and the lights (thank you very much), but there it still stands in our living room - mocking me. It laughs a little on the inside when I walk around in my slippers and grimace because I have unwittingly found ANOTHER pine needle wedged into their fake sherpa interior. It giggles at knowing that I am unable to take the damn thing outside by myself (and survive to talk about it). And when we're not home, I'm sure it cackles inanelybecause it knows that it has Boyfriend in it's hypnotic trance and that unless I beg, borrow, and steal, I'm never going to be able to get him to move the damn thing. But, tonight, come hell or highwater (or perhaps both), I'm getting that forsaken deadwood out of my house. It's personal now.

Second: The knitting
I came to work this morning, fully prepared to whine and cry about last night's endeavors, but things looked up after lunch. I had prepared myself to tell the world about the cursing and yelling, and the shameful way I conducted myself last night, but I have decided to glaze over those facts, instead.

Yesterday I went to the LYS and got me some Brittany Birch needles (which are about as sticky as I can handle) so that I might sit down and make the hat from Susan's cool pattern. This was, perhaps, my first mistake. Not because the pattern isn't fabulous, but because it breaks my rule of learning more than one new thing at a time. While I know how to increase by knitting into the front and back of the loop, I have never "made one" (that sounds so naughty, I love it! Now get your mind out of the gutter. This is not that kind of blog). I have also never knit on a dpn before, which means I have never cast on a dpn before. Simple enough, but Susan has you do Emily Ocker's cast on, which is wicked cool (once you figure it out), but also new - fabulous tutorial here. So having said that, and knowing who won last nights battle, you could surmise that I spent a lot of time practicing this cast on, over and over and over and, well, you get the point. I don't even want to discuss how many times I tried. Let's just say it's not pretty and it's not in single digits.
So, by the end of two hours of attempts, I was left with some empty dpns and some very angry Cascade 220.
The worst part is that I got the hang of it right off the bat, and then decided that I wasn't doing something right, and I ripped it out. It doesn't help that I had the running commentary brought straight to my living room by Boyfriend for the better part of that knitting. I remember something along the lines of knitting with a hedgehog, and something about taking my eye out. Also, when I attempted to do 5 needles instead of 4, the commentary only worsened. He nearly got his eye poked out by an angry dpn, but was saved by the fact that they were all busy at that exact moment. The knitting was far more important then exacting my revenge. That could wait.
But alas, instead of trusting myself, I ended up ripping back over and over again and trying to do it "right". Yeah, like I know what right is. Instead I just kept getting lost. I'm not sure how you get lost when you only have six stitches, but I managed to get turned around more than a lazy susan. It was frustrating, and pathetic. Finally, when I got too tired to take it anymore I went to bed and dreamt of sanding the needles into oblivion and sprikling their ashes across the back lawn. Those were good dreams.
But then, today, things seemed to make a little more sense. I spent the better part of the morning watching tiny videos on my computer, and reading every tip I could find about how to keep your porcupine in order. Then I went to my car on my lunch break, and sat with the windows open -can you believe that it's 60 degress + in the nations capital today??. I believe that the weather helped somehow, because I got it. As long as I don't think about it too hard, I can do it. I'm up to 12 stitches on 2 needles and 10 on the other. This way I could stop and get started again fairly easily (I hope). Thank goodness, because I don't think I could take another night of having my needles fall out and roll all over the floor again.
So, hopefully, I will be able to show some progress tomorrow. I don't plan on getting my hopes up too high, because I can't say how long it's going to take me to wrestle the evil genius in the tree stand outside. With any luck I should come out the winner of this epic battle - if not, I know where to get a good chain saw, and I'm not afraid to use it.

FO Report: Irish Hiking Scarf

2006-01-11T13:24:00.000-05:00

Yarn: 2 Skeins of Cascade 220 in The Heathers: Lavendar
Needles: Crystal Palace bamboo US8(R.I.P) and Brittany Birch US8
Gauge: Now, why would I know that?
Pattern: Iri sh Hiking Scarf from Hello Yarn
Measurements: 5" by 60"ish. Pretty much the same after blocking.
Notes: This was a great pattern! Very easy, very lovely. This was my first time doing cables, and I used Grumperina's tutorial for Cabling without the extra needle. I'm sure it went much quicker because of this. I highly recommend this pattern as a first cabling project, either with or without a needle.
I was also very pleased to see that after it's (rather short) soak in Euclan that the extra long stitch that I always got (and hope is normal) on the last stitch of the cable, sort of tightened up and looked far less retarded. The whole thing looks much better after water, than before.
Here are some other ~~bad~~ pictures:

Far more interesting post to follow ~~probably~~ later today

The tree of shame

2006-01-10T15:05:00.000-05:00

I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's true. The tree is still standing in our house. It is so shameful. I really had planned to take it down this past weekend, but it didn't happen due to the Migraine from hell. Then I was going to take it down Monday, but boyfriend got delayed at work and I had a puppy to take care of, and before I knew it I was late making dinner and then it was time for bed. I'm starting to think that the tree is an evil genius. I think it's planning our demise so that it might take us out and take over the house. It's never left it's spot in the corner and yet I find pine needles all over the house, like it's slowly infultraiting. I think it might be bitter that we have hardwood floors or something. It's bitter about it's kindred trees and it's aiming to take us over and use us as flooring. It has managed to stay in our house far longer than I find acceptable, past the point of irritation and onto where I don't even notice it anymore. It's trying to convince me that it doesn't actually exist at all. It's almost working, but I'm going to fight back. I will not be sucked into it's piney trap. It's too late for boyfriend, though. It has him convinced that we shouldn't take it down at all. He is clearly posessed by the mystery of the evergreen. He's woefully tranced into thinking that the tree should merely have it's ornamnets removed and should remain in the house while we cut it up to use as kindling. Raise your stix if you think this is EVER going to happen.....

anybody?.....

Yeah, that's what I thought. I don't see anyone reaching for their knitting.
We have been in our house a little over a year and in that time only had one attempt at a fire. One attempt, and one failure. I'll let you do the math on your own. Have a friend help you if you can't work it out.
So, tonight, in an effort to free boyfriend of his flora induced delusion, I'm setting out to get the tree out of the house, and life back in order.
------------------
As for the knitting I'm hoping to get the Irish Hiking scarf off the needles and into a bath tonight. That means Jes-2 Scarfs-1. It ocurred to me last night that I'd never seen a scarf on my grandfather and that it would be silly to spend tons of time making something he wouldn't wear. So instead, I'm thinking about doing this hat from I'm Knitting as Fast as I Can. I've never made a hat before, so I'm a little nervous, but I think I can do it. The only thing is that my Grandpa has a gigantic melon, like special order hats big, which is why I chose this pattern. This way I can keep increasing and increasing until it's big enough and not have to worry about making a pattern larger. That's a step I'm just not ready for. So, hopefully, tomorow I will be on my way to the LYS to get some big dpns and do my first project in the round! Wish me luck.

If tomorrow you don't see an FO report for the Irish Hiking scarf, you will know that the tree has taken over complete control of our house. Please send help - Lumberjacks preferred, strong people with pointy axes accepted.

FO Report: Midwest Moonlight

2006-01-09T13:16:00.000-05:00

Well, here she is. Sort of an odd photo, I know, but with the lack of natural light, and the darkness of the yarn, I had to resort to the brightest place in the house, which is the bathroom door. Who knew?

Yarn: 1 and a half skeins (roughly) of Cascade 220. No clue what the color number was, but it's a dark greeny, blue.
Needles: Crystal Palace bamboo US7
Gauge: The standard answer of, I don't know. If it helps the scarf is 33 stitches over 7" wide.
Pattern: Midwest Moonlight from Scarf Style
Measurements: 7" x 53" before blocking. 7" by 72"(!) after.
Notes: As you've seen the pattern was way too wide for my tastes with three repeats, so I cut it back to 2, which made me much happier. I did the stated 25 pattern repeats, instead of an extra one, because I could tell it was going to be long enough after blocking. I think if I did this again, I would do fewer repeats - say 21ish - because you can block the hell out of it. This scarf tried to ben a honking 84" long, but we had a conversation and I had the pins, so I talked it down to 73" - still a little long imo, but better than before. This was a fun pattern and easy to memorize. My only complaint is that it produced an odly coarse fabric, even after soaking for a half hour in Euclan. It's not stiff, but it's a little rough. I would say it's the yarn, but I'm making my Irish Hiking scarf out of the same stuff and it seems far softer. Other than that it's great.

Here's a couple more shots of it blocking and a pathetic attempt at a natural light shot:

FO: Intarsia Baby Blanket

2006-01-05T17:04:00.000-05:00

Yarn: Shine: 3 full skeins of cream, 1 of light blue, 1 of purple, 1 of dark pink, 1 of light pink, 1 of dark green, and 1 of light green.
Needles: Addi Turbos Circulars US 6 24"
Gauge: Again, no clue. I just know that it was tighter than what shine is supposed to be on 3-5s.
Pattern: From the book Instant Expert: Knitting
Notes: This project was HUGE. I can't believe how long it took me. But, it did turn out great, and Heather seems happy with it, which is the most important. I did suffer a bit getting through the seed stitch parts. I had to rip a little to fix the mistakes. Especially frustrating because if you mess up one row then three rows turn into ribbing. I tried a couple of times to ladder the stitches and fix them, but it ends up looking really ugly. I'm sure it would be much easier and quicker if I was a picker, and I'm going to work on that as soon as I get some other things finished.
Anyhow, I did find that I had some issues with the Shine while I was wrapping the yarn. It seemed that no matter what I did the stitches got really huge in that one column. It looked a little better after washing, but it still bugged me. It could explain why I knit this so tight. Once I got started, I couldn't stop.
Also, I was scared for my life to wash this with so many saturated colors and then the cream, but I washed it with woolite on delicate and cold and dried it on low heat and it came out beautifully. There wasn't a drop of color bleed and it barely even got fuzzy and there were no pills. For that I'm ecstatic.

Mystery Project Solved

2006-01-05T16:24:00.000-05:00

So there it is! This is what I've been working on for about forever, I'd say. It took from sometime in October until a few days ago to complete. I'm guessing that it was about 66 hours. It took me about 15 minutes a row to do, which at 140 stitches across, is pretty reasonable. Maybe not for straight stockinette, but when you consider that I had to do 5 yarn crosses for the intarsia, doesn't seem so bad. So 36,960 stitches later and you get one, fairly large baby blanket.

So, here are all the steps that you missed because I had to hide it from someone. Here is the yarn when it came in, with the size 6 addis. Based on the pattern, which sadly only gave weights for yarns, and not mileage, I way over ordered. That and the fact that I didn't like how dark all the colors were initially. After I looked at the pattern again, I ordered more yarn of the lighter colors of Shine to counter the darkness of the green, pink, and purple.Here is the beginning of the color work. The first 29 rows were seed stitch (which takes this thrower, forever!) and stockinette and you're off to intarsia-land for what seems like an eternity.

Then after awhile, you end up with a whole bunch of tangles skeins as you switch from one color to another. You could, in theory, have 8 skeins attached at once in this process. I chose to do this on our bed so I could have enough space to keep it straight. Here is a close up of what the skein wrapping looks like on the back side:

And here is the front
And here is the finished picture of the back:
I thought this picture was fuzzy at first, but if you click on it, you can see it's because of the yarn wraps between the squares (and it's a little fuzzy) that makes it look that way. Also here is a close up of the finished back.
So, right after this post (because I have pissed off blogger with too many photos in this post) I will put the official FO report.

Sorry that it's been so long since I posted, but I was sick yesterday and it took me forever on Tuesday and today to catch up on everyone's blog, and I'm still not done! Ack!

Happy New Year!

2005-12-30T16:22:00.000-05:00

I was going to try to come up with a cunning post for today, but I got nuthin'. I got three and a half mroe repeats done on Midwest and I'm sick of it. Not the pattern as I am just sick of looking at the color. I don't know what color I thought it was in the store, but I was wrong. It's not ugly, I'm just sick of it. I will probably go back to the hiking scarf awhile, but before then I need to have a little sewing party. Friends don't let friends knit drunk, but I don't see what's wrong with a little Cosmo and seeming/weaving in. I really need to do it tonight to get the mystery dry in time, so I'm going for it, even if it makes me crazy in the end. Not a long trip there, anyhow.
Well, the day is almost done, and I'm itching to get out of here. One trip to the grocery store for real grapes for the Cuban tradition and one trip to the liquor store for some fermented grapes because, well, I like it. I'm sure I'll be too ~~hungover~~ busy this weekend to blog, so until then have a Joyous New Year.

Happy New Year!!!!!!!