Scarf

Without further ado, I present to you..... (drumroll please....)

A scarf! It matches the handwarmers!


It's blocked! And dry!

Now, Janice, all that's left is for y'all (notice: singular form) to pick it up. Just let me know when you're arriving and I'll fix a mess of greens and some grits.

Here's what I've done on my sweater (check out my dolphin stitch marker.) I'm out of the ribbing and into the mindless stockinette. I'm a happy girl.



Here's the purple hint of the day:



For those of you who know my house-- C'mon now, it's not that hard!

HA! A swatch!

Immediately after blogging yesterday I fell asleep on the couch so no sweater progress was made.

However, today I managed to do this:



Yep, that's my swatch. With the right yarn and with the right needles. (The holes stand for the needle size. Six holes is for size 6 needles and seven holes are for size 7.)

I figured out the gauge and then measured my two most favorite sweaters. Amazingly enough, they were the same size.

Here's my pattern as written so far:



I'm ready to cast on, and if I don't fall asleep again, there should be some progress by tomorrow.

The raglan issues will resolve themselves in time (don't want to hurt my brain by thinking ahead). Valeria sent me this link to Drops Designs that has tons of patterns for everything imaginable. (Thanks, Valeria!) I found a raglan pattern on the first page that's constructed like mine. Soon, I'll read it.

Purple Hint:
Although Nancy's guess that I got a new Twister game was amusing, it was also incorrect. Here's another clue:



Need another?

Wise

I've been planning a sweater for a long time now--at least since the beginning of November. My Knitpicks Options needles were bought with this in mind. Yarn accumulated in October and November are hanging out together.

The only thing missing is a pattern.

It's a basic raglan sweater. (I've never done one before, can you believe it?) (No, wait, that's not true. I made one in the late 80's that was too small so I gave it away. That one doesn't count.)

A basic raglan can be top down or bottom up and is most likely to be totally seamless. I'm a big fan of totally seamless, except that....

I want to do the sleeves a different color, like a baseball jersey. So...I'll have to do the pieces separately and seam up the raglans (is that what I'm seaming up? ).

I want not-just-ordinary ribbing, eggplant and leaf green sleeves with Fibonacci stripes, and a grey body.



In my mind it sounds good, although looking at the yarn together makes me question the grey marl. It seems a bit more yellow-ish in person than in my head.

As all experts (and anyone that has knit anything ever) will tell you, first must come a swatch.

Here's my swatch: Using green acrylic yarn and size 7 straights (because I like the way they feel), I tried out a couple of ribbings.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Using the wrong yarn and the wrong needles does not count as a swatch. I know that. And yet here it is:



(The tangle of yarn in the background is where I caught the yarn on my foot--my felted clog to be exact, and dragged it 15 feet before I stopped to remove it.) (And check out my finished puzzle.)

Wise advice about swatching says to start with a sleeve. It'll be a swatch and a start of the finished product at the same time.

Wise....except I don't want to knit with eggplant now, I want to knit with grey.

Wise....except I don't want to use dpns now, I want to use my circs.

Wise....except I hardly ever do anything the wisest, most efficient way.

I think I'm going to use 7's for this project. Anyone else pick out their needles by which is their current favorite, rather than by actual sense they make in a pattern? If I didn't have my new needles, I might use 6's (my favorite bamboo ones) or 8's (still bamboo, but not quite as favorite.)

While I will do an actual swatch, I may not do anything more before starting.

Is that wise? No. I could figure out things like: How am I going to seam this together to look nice????

Will I? Most likely not.

The rest of the story

Remeber when I blogged about my daughter's clogs? You might've thought about what a good mom I was.

Well, here is the rest of the story....

DD#2 had taken to wearing my clogs around, and sliding across the kitchen floor. Over and over. And over. And over again. (If only they'd clean the floor at the same time I'd be okay with it.)

To the point where my clogs looks like this:



I finally stopped her. "Ruin your own slippers, not mine!"

"But mine aren't slippery on the bottom," she replied.

Then the fatal words came out of my mouth.

"I could make you a pair."

That resulted in her orange/teal clogs that, oh by the way, HAVE NEVER BEEN USED TO SLIDE ACROSS THE FLOOR!

Whatever.

I guess she learned to preserve her clogs, and I was left to fix mine.



(The crumbs may or may not have been removed before fixing. You decide which I did.)

I knit a new pair of soles, including the bumpers since they were part of the original slipper. The red was chosen by DS#2 on a whim. Obviously I didn't care a whole lot since I went with it (although I would've chosen black.)



Once felted, I tugged them a bit until they fit the current bottoms and T-pinned them into place.



The pins are mostly for show since they weren't long enough to hold onto the carpet. I want to think they did some good anyway.

Then, I blanket-stitched the soles together (gotta use that black somewhere!) My blanket stitch has a very rustic (read: mistakes) look to it. Too lazy to rip it out plus hey, it's on the bottom, anyway!

This is why when I state that I'm a "procrastinating perfectionist" that my husband starts to laugh. Not about the procrastinating part--he's well aware of that. It's the perfectionist part that gives him a giggle.



Here's the top view:



Nice and cushiony and used less than one skein of yarn.

Now you know the rest of the story.

Happenings

A new pair of wristwarmers are finished, unblocked, and lying on a wrinkled placemat. Bad photography setup--but at least I set them in front of a window for natural light.



That's right, my wrinkled mis-shapen items have good lighting. If only I wasn't so impatient I could get a good photo. I'll have another opportunity, though, as these are waiting a matching scarf.

Maybe they can be artfully arranged in some snow (not that we've had any yet all winter, but there's always hope. At least until April.)

Previously I told you that we have purple things happening at my house. Here's the first picture:



And here's the first hint: It's non-knitting related. (Although, wouldn't that make a nice sweater?)

Cold!

Here's another yarn purchase I've made recently. Peace Fleece in Soyuz Apollo Teal and Blueberry Borscht. (I had to pause in my typing to turn my keyboard upside down and shake it so that I could type CAPITAL letters again. Just thought I'd share.)



(Note that the penguins are not just Christmas decorations, but winter-y season decorations so they can still be up. And I don't know where to put them yet. They're appropriate right now since it's 21 degrees F outside and falling.)

Here's my teal (which is the color :) cardie sleeve. It's not as huge as it looks from the picture, but it does have a bell curve on the bottom.



Gee, if only it was done for today!

Grape

I'm not sure how true this is, but seeing that I like all shades of purple, I put this in anyway....

You Are Grape

You are bold and a true individual. You are very different and very okay with that. People know you as a straight shooter. You're very honest, even when the truth hurts. You are also very grounded and practical. No one is going to sneak anything by you. People enjoy your fresh approach to life. And it's this honesty that makes you a very innovative person.

What Color Purple Are You?

A note of things to come:

There is something that's going to be purple in my house. Look for pictures in a week or so.

Boring title #24

Not only have I taken down the Christmas decorations, but I've put on my Valentine's tablecloth. (Coming to dinner with sunglasses is accepted.)



I'm a bit jealous that there are at least 2 of you that are totally unique. No one reported in that there are more of you than more of me. Hmmph.

In knitting news, I've been working on a couple of different things.

I've finished the back of my teal cardie, and have started the sleeve. (Twice. The first time I was confused on which needles were the bigger ones. Sometimes I think I have a brain the size of a dinosaur's. And the grace to match.)



Also, my sock is nearing the heel. Soon, anyway.

The prayer shawl is also making progress.


If you look closely, you can see the change of skeins (orange line on left side, rather than a subtle blending in). I looked carefully at where to join this yarn, but the orange on the left almost-but-not-quite matched the orange at the cast on point. The beginning section of the new skein matched no part of the old skein. (Yes, the dyelots are the same.) How crazy is that?

2006 roundup

Even though this would've been a good New Year's post and now I'm behind, I'm still going to do it. (Hey, if I haven't sent out Christmas cards yet, I'm not too late for a New Year's post. Notice that I say "yet" as in "I'm still considering doing them".)

I counted up what I knit in 2006, and I knit:

2 adult sweaters (Rogue and Purple Passion)
2 scarves
1 hat
6 pr. handwarmers
1 bunny
4 pr. adult socks
1 baby sweater
5 pr. baby socks
1 oven mitt and 2 hot pads

For CIC, I've knit:
10 pr. socks
7 pr. handwarmers
6 vests
4 sweaters
1 shawl

It was fun to look through my pictures, but made my new "to-do" list get longer. (Oh, yeh, I want to make another sweater, or some more hot pads for me, or...)

To add to today's excitement, I took down the Christmas tree. And put it in the shed (as opposed to the middle of the floor for the next 3 months.) And I cleaned the coffee pot.

It was a good day.

Soon

While I so wanted to go with the opinion of "leave it as it is", I knew that I needed to follow Marguerite's advice and redo the sock. So I did.



I feel much better now. I was even able to do the knitting part at an indoor soccer game today. Amidst all that loudness, I don't think I made a mistake. If you see one, please don't point it out to me. The ends have been hidden and they've been washed.

I think I forgot to mention that they are for CIC. From now until March 31st the challenge to knit big, for the big kids. These just barely go my my 9 yr. old DS's big feet, so I think they'll be just right.

With all this blogging, I forgot to show my big Christmas present this year. Anyone recognize it?



How about now?


It's the Knitpicks Options interchangeable needles set. I knew about it way before Christmas (because....well....I ordered it myself.)

I anxiously anticipated using them. I had opened the shipping package--to make sure all the pieces were there, you see. Other than that, though, I hadn't touched them.

It was fun to open the present at Christmas, but since then I've been slightly afraid to use them. (Plus I was busy--and sick--and busy with all that cooking supper and avoiding cleaning and all.)

Today I finally organized the needles in their cute little pouches.

Soon I will get up the courage to use them.

Soon, very soon.

Unbelievable

NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO

NO

NO

no

Nooooooooooooo.............................

I've been screaming this inside my head (not continuously, but enough that you might think I've gone over the edge) for the past 2 days.

Can you see why?




Say it with me, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo..................."

(At this point I took a break to finish cooking supper and eat it. Many times I've been blogging and burned supper. This time I set a timer.)

No matter how carefully I spliced together that second ball of yarn, I still managed to knit it OUT OF ORDER.

Things were fine until I did the heel. On sock #1 (left) I carried the variegated yarn up the heel, then started knitting with it again when the heel was finished. On sock #2 (right), I forgot to carry the yarn, so instead I broke the yarn, immediately picked up the end, and started knitting with it. Except.....it was the wrong end.

As unbelievable as that sounds (I didn't even put the sock down to answer the phone. Or eat a piece of chocolate), it's true.

Not only that, but instead of noticing it during the next couple of rows, I didn't notice until I was almost done.

How did this happen? I have absolutely no idea.

Why didn't I notice sooner? Well, I assumed that I was doing it correctly. (A bad mistake, people).

Now, instead of ripping out the heel like I considered, now I have to rip out the whole entire foot!!!!

I know, I don't really have to rip it out, but after all the work splicing yarn together to make sure it would match, I'm not giving up now.

I'll be working on it as soon as it comes out of time-out.

Simply Unbelievable.

How Many of Me

Hmmm...I don't know how I feel about this...

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 2,141 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Well, at least I know I'm unique. How many of you are there?

No yarn diet here

I didn't put away any Christmas decorations, but I did clean out a cabinet where lo and behold I found a missing screw. It doesn't match the switch plate, but it's usually behind the china closet anyway. Here's the unrelated picture of the day:



I haven't been on a yarn diet (too hard at this sale time of year), so here are my recent yarn purchases.

First, a Christmas gift arrangement from work--marked down to 70% off. It's a wine tube (needle holder), a skein of Lion Brand Homespun (storing up for the next prayer shawl), and a pair of size 11 needles.


I bought a grab bag of yarn from Cherry Tree Hill. I've never tried this yarn before, so it will be fun.

On the left is Jumbo Loop--a bulky Mohair Boucle in Champagne, and on the right is Baby Loop--a light sport mohair boucle--water color.


I've never knit with either before (sorry-that was redundant. I guess if I've never tried this yarn then I've never knit with it either....). Maybe it'll be time to make a lace shawl.


Here's some more sale yarn--$1 yer skein.


Who doesn't need a stash of fancy fur?

Curious, are we?

From the comments I've received, ya'll are curious about my pile of scrap yarn. Well...let me explain.....later.

First, here's a couple of totally unrelated pictures.

Here's what my dad gave me for Christmas. They came from China--when he was there.



Aren't they pretty? And you also know that they are being shown on the table where the penguins were yesterday. (For the life of me, I can't think of what they should be called. I'm pretty sure they're silk. Table runner? Really big coaster? Somebody help me out.)

That's right. I've started to clean up the Christmas decorations, starting with the penguins. If I keep going at this rate (which is r...e...a...l...l...y stretching it out) I might meet my goal by the end of the week.

Now, this next picture may seem odd, but believe me--it's exciting.

I recently found Hershey's Special Dark cocoa in the grocery store.

Check out the dark cocoa (right) compared to the regular cocoa (left).



It's really, and I mean really, dark. Almost black. Wonderful.

I made chocolate inside-outside cookies for my son to take back with him last week. (That's our name for them. You might know them as chocolate no-bake cookies. They have oatmeal and peanut butter in them.) They were black.

And I gave them all away. I only got to lick the pan. And eat just one while I was packing them up. (Okay, all together now: "Aww, you're such a good mom!")

I plan on making more soon. To share of course. (Especially for DD#2 who says "why don't you make cookies just for us?")(Okay, but she doesn't get to lick the pan.)

Side note for Valeria: It scares me a bit to hear that you are learning more English by reading my blog. You should know that proper English writing doesn't have all these (parentheses). And proper sentences don't start with "and" or "but". Please keep that in mind.

But I digress....

Here's a picture of my yarn puzzle--just to show that I've been working on it.



And here is what my pile of scrap yarn is becoming. Half of it, anyway.



The other half is becoming this:



A sock! I'm taking all the scraps that are too small for anything else, cutting them in half, spit splicing a half of each color together, and knitting the stripes. (The brown is a ball of Paton's Classic Wool.) At the same time, I'm creating the other ball of scrap yarn, splicing the scraps in the same order as for the other sock.

So far, so good. Looks good, the other sock should match (that's my plan, anyway), and no knots because of the spit splicing. The only problem is the constant stray piece of wool in my mouth from the spit. Plus the gross-out factor. Especially if Goldfish crackers are eaten at the same time which they might've been tonight.

Like my project?

Sunday Musings

I have a brilliant idea.

It involves this:


That's as far as I've gotten, however. (Surprised?) Tune in again for more information. I might work on it tonight.

In the meantime, I cast on a sock for me.

Here it is, nestled among my penguin collection. It's hard to see, but it's a generic sock knit in crayon colored variegated sock yarn.



This picture might give away the fact that my Christmas decorations are still up. I could insist that it's only the penguin collection that's still up, but would you believe me? I didn't think so.

Here's my goals for the week:
1. Take down the Christmas decorations
2. Work on my sock
3. Start my brilliant idea. If it works, it'll be done by the end of the week.
4. Fix my clogs. (details to come.)
5. Maybe do some cooking and cleaning. Depends on how it fits in after doing #1-5. (One kid has gone back to college, so the cooking part is not quite as intensive. But it should still exist.)

Finally, what's a post without a picture of a hermit crab sitting on a palm tree?



DD#2 made a Sculpey clay palm tree for DD#1's hermit crabs. How it got up there, we didn't see. We're pretty sure, though, that it crawled up by itself.

Finished more stuff

(Gotta take a title-writing class....)

A couple of things got finished today (these pictures are before blocking 'cause I want to say they're done today rather than wait until they're washed and dry.)

Another couple of pairs of CIC socks:



The baby cardigan that was completed too late (for the trip to give the present), then discovered that it was a good thing since it was too fat and short. I picked up stitches along the bottom and knit another inch or so of garter rib. (Row 1: K3, P3. Row 2: knit). This looks much better.



The buttons are even sewn on and it's ready to go!

DD's clogs

Working on some orange Fiber Trends felted clogs for DD#2. This was the yarn that was dyed orange. The teal was a combination of one almost full skein and 2 odd balls. The teals changed color a bit, but since DD insisted that she liked the way they looked, I left them in.



Here they are felted, and several inches shorter.



She loves the way they turned out.

Long enough

This is how long I sat at the dentist's office yesterday.




About an hour and a half--not too bad. (DS#2's baby tooth got a temp filling and instructions to wiggle it until it came out. $69 please.)

This is a CIC sock from the 6SoxKAL pattern. Each week they're having a raffle for a prize (picking from the chain link CIC socks) and I won last week! (It might've been the week before. I'm losing track.)

This is a beautiful counting bracelet. I even got to specify the purple! Think I can just wear it as a bracelet sometimes even though I'm not counting with it?

Reasons Smorgasbord

Here are my reasons for not blogging:

1. I've been busy, because
2. There are 6-8 people in my house at all times, and
3. They seem to want to eat dinner, EVERY DAY, and
4. That takes a lot of dishes, that
5. Need to be washed, just so that
6. They can be used for dinner the next day.

And also,
7. I haven't been knitting as much (see the above reasons), plus
8. All the above people are on vacation (excepting 1 who is in college and has boundless energy to both work and goof off.) so they want to
9. Hang around and talk, and
10. Play games until late at night (which requires snacks).

And then,
11. These people (especially the college-aged ones) are always on the computer, or sleeping, or coming, or going, and
12. THERE IS ALWAYS SOMEONE SLEEPING IN MY HOUSE!
13. ALWAYS! (This doesn't really relate to not-blogging reasons, but I decided to get it off my chest. You know how when someone's taking a nap in his/her room, then the only thing that you can think of to do is to vacuum his/her room? I've felt that for 2 weeks now. I love my family, but there should be a rule that there should be no sleeping during the daytime--unless it's me. Then it's allowed. And encouraged.)

I could also mention
14. Being sick (stupid cold)
15. Working in a retail store at Christmas time (picture long lines of tired people who at various times who would tell me, "This is the last thing, and now I'm done." Gee, that's nice for you. I'm not sure I've started yet. And here I should mention a heartfelt thanks to my DH (not that he ever reads my blog) for taking care of all the misc. Christmas stuff. THANKS from the bottom of my tired feet! And sniffly nose.)
16. A s......l.......o........w modem that makes blogging a painful thing at the best times.
17. No easy project on the needles, so when I'm talking, or playing games, I have no mindless knitting to do.

That's my reasons for not blogging. Pick one or pick them all!