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So it's been forever and a day since I have done any actual knitting blogging, so since there is nearly no time left in 2007 I will catch up so as to not enter 2008 behind in my blogging! (If there is such a thing, really.)
Anyways, a while back I made a comment about knitting time/space continuum issues that I had. See, I was knitting an Elizabeth Zimmerman February baby sweater and I somehow thought that I could bang it out in no time at all. Yeah right. I shouldn't have picked such thin yarn or I would have made it in time but I didn't so I was slightly late in delivering my gift, but that was ok because I got to rest before my mom arrived. Anyways, this is my EZ February baby sweater that I knit for my friends baby out of Spritely Goods Sylph in the Winter Lotus colorway:
I put in button holes at the recommended intervals, but since the yarn was so fine... I ended up with 9 freaking button holes. There were actually 10 but the first one I did wasn't in the right place so I just sewed it up.
But it worked out I think, I'm happy with how this looks. I even got a PM on Ravelry from the Spritely Goods dyer asking me if she could put one of my photos in her gallery!
For the same baby, I knit a pair of Saarjte's booties out of the same yarn.
I got the idea from Freecia who knit the same combination for one of her friends. I mean, it really is the perfect match for this sweater with the garter stitch top.
Love these! So cute. The buttons are white because, duh, 9 buttons for sweater and I had to go get more. Which of course at the different store I went to they didn't have the buttons in blue, they had them in white.
I tried getting Schweetheart to model the sweater and booties but, well, it didn't work as well as the last time:
Ah well, it worked out perfectly in the end. And I finished the project before the baby was born (all 10 lbs 2 oz of her!). Here is momma with my gift a few days before baby was born:
I nearly forgot to mention, the project details are on Ravelry, here and here.
So I also knit a baby genius burp cloth for the same baby, but I managed to forget this when we took over the sweater and booties. Whoops. I did remember it when hubby and I went to our Secret Santa gift exchange party (more about this later!). This is out of Bernat Handicrafter Cotton in the Lavender Ice colorway:
Ravelry notes here.Momma requested no pink for the baby, so that's why there's a whole mix of colors in the stuff I gave to her.
Oh, I finally managed to to take a picture of my "Scarf of Lies" as the OCK calls it. (Though mine isn't a scarf of lies like hers is, I managed to get a skein of the ribbon yarn that wasn't prepackaged so it wasn't shorted like hers appears to have been. Mine is a scarf of lies in how "easy" it is to do. Ok, the knitting is simple, but I have had major tangling issues. Everything tangled for me, the yarn AND the strings of beads. Yes, the beads too. Yippee.) Anyways, the damnable scarf is halfway done and waiting to be knit again. Had to stop for holiday knitting. Probably should have stopped sooner but everyone has to learn the hard way, right?
So pretty. I really do love how it looks. The colors are remarkably similar to the ones in the Spritely Goods yarn, which amuses me. I could possibly knit a pair of socks with my leftover yarn from the baby sweater. The skein of yarn was ginormous. I'd have to measure it, and I'm likely deluding myself but I could maybe crank out some ankle socks.
But here it is in its halfway-doneness glory:
I will get back to it... sometime.
I didn't queue too much up for Christmas knitting, though none of what I did queue up has been completed. I wanted to knit my mother-in-law some mittens. She was down here in September for hubby's birthday and she mentioned something about how she couldn't seem to find any mittens, all she could find in the shops were gloves. I think possibly she was doing it to see if she could get a pair of hand knit mittens out of me, but I'm not entirely positive she's that crafty. At any rate, I had been loving how Eunny Jang's Anemoi mitten pattern looked so instead of doing something basic out of The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns I already own, I decided to buy Eunny's pattern. Why knit worsted weight yarn mittens that I could crank out in a few hours like Emy did when I can spend an extended amount of time knitting fair isle (not intarsia, shit I knew that. Thanks Emy. >.<) for the first time! Ah well. It's been great. And I did stash busting for this! (Mwahaha no $5 owed for me yet thankyouverymuch!)
So this is the first finished mitten. Only took me three attempts to get to this point... Le sigh.
I started out using my Collinette Jitterbug in the Jay colorway and my second colorway of Koigu (KPM not KPPM this time, a bright pink #2120). I went with the Jay as the CC but I really should have made it the MC. I got to the row where you put the thumb gore stitches on waste yarn and decided I wasn't happy with how the pattern was coming out.
So I went back into my stash and I found two colorways of KnitPicks Essential Solid yarn, one in black (purchased to make the BMP socks) and one in burgundy (bought this before the BMP yarn, pretty sure I bought it to fill out my order for free shipping and to give the yarn a try). I figured these were good combinations because my hubby was buying my mil two jackets (one for Christmas and one for her Jan 5th birthday), both of which were black. So I started over again. So I did the cuff in size 0 needles as written in the pattern (first mitten I only used the 0's for the cast on row, went up to size 1's after that. I clearly did the cuff wrong too. The first attempt was nothing but special.) and went up to size 1's when I was starting the mitten. Holy frijole. That cuff was WAY too tight. Everyone I got to try on the mitten to see if they could get their hand in strugged with the mitten. No way was I going to go through all the work of making a pair of mittens only to have my mil not be able to get them on her hands! So, again, I was about to the point where you put the thumb gore stitches on waste yarn... and I frogged. Again.
So thankfully, the third time was the charm and I am finally on the second mitten. I did take a minor break while knitting the second mitten. I knew I wasn't going to make it for Christmas so I thought I would try to make a pair of Dashing fingerless gloves for hubby. That went as well as these mittens did. Well, almost. It only took me one frogging to get it right.
Anyways, no photos yet of the Dashing yet. One is done and the second is in the home stretch. But I put that down so that I can focus on the mitten again. Which is also nearing the home stretch. The thumb gore stitches are on waste yarn and I am about halfway with the mitten body. Hopefully I can finish it so that we can get it in the mail by Wednesday. They'll be late if I don't get them in the mail by then.
I'll blog about my Christmas yarn later. I'm fighting a cold so I'm going to go rest a bit. I have to take pictures of my goodies, so hopefully I will get to that later today!
Oh dudes, my great nephew Jake is a cutie patootie. Here is the email he sent to Santa:
Dear Santa,
Thank you for the reindeer and bringing presents on Christmas. I wish for a toy train and a toy car. I also wish for my daddy, mommy and baby Cade to have good health for a long time. My mommy says she wishes the same for me! Santa, please be safe and careful on Christmas Eve, because you have a long beard!!!
Love,
Jake
How cute is he?!
...is really going to kill me!
So I went to Purlescence Yarns today with my favorite friend the OCK and it was really a test of willpower! Sure, I was there last night for knitting night but I was happy to just enjoy the company of my fellow knitters and watch A Christmas Story.
The problem was I could wander around the shop and look at yarn!
Ok, so I resisted temptation last night but then I went and pushed my luck by going again today! See, I had seen a colorway of Dream in Color Smooshy that I thought perfect for Jeanie. Except I didn't look at the band to see what the hell color it was. So I wanted to go back and look at the colorway before they sold out.
It was soooo hard going back a second time! But I resisted! I have witnesses! I bought no yarn! I do not owe any *$5 "fees"!
Man, this is gonna be hard.
*Ok, so I would have owed $15 had they actually HAD three skeins of Deep Seaflower. But they had only two left. So I am still safe. For now. Hey, anyone feel like heading over to the Loopy Ewe and buy me 3 skeins for a Christmas present? I'm sure we can work something out. Come on, you know you want to!!
Now that there is just one month before Christmas, why the hell can I not remember what it was I wanted to knit for people so badly? It's no wonder I fail at the knitting time/space continuum thing.
Good lord. It is just way too early for me to go out and shop. I was going to hit Purlescence and Knitting Arts this morning like I did last year, but I just cannot convince myself to go out in the cold weather, in my pajamas, after 5ish hours of sleep. I am clearly not lacking for sock yarn, though I am wanting to knit some Aenemoi Mittens for my mother in law and I would like some variegated Koigu KPPPM maybe to go along with my bright pink Koigu KPM I bought last year.
I'll just settle for a trip to SF later for a yarn crawl I think.
Back to bed I go!
Mom's back home now (boo). We had a fantastic time together. It was a really good visit. Well, except for my asshole father not leaving my house when I asked him to so that my mom could come into my house for ONE FREAKING DAY. She got to meet the kittens, but I had to take them out to the car one at a time. I had wanted to show her Bratty and Chubbo's beautiful containers but I didn't take them out to her in the car. I had really hoped that my dad would pull through for me. Just once. Selfish jackass.
At any rate, I'm back to work now for just 3 days. I have my new-old employee (she worked for me 2 years ago) working for me at my employer (yippee!) and it is a dream to have her. She has a really great laugh and is getting along very well with the rest of the staff. I am so happy she wanted to come work with me again!
No Thanksgiving dinner cooking for me this year. We're going over to a friend's house. Even before last Saturday (the day I wanted my mom to come over) I wasn't feeling the cooking mojo for turkey day. I am a very very picky eater for Thanksgiving. I only really want all the foods that my mom cooked when I was growing up. I just didn't feel like cooking for the 3 of us (I couldn't get a response from our friends if he and his wife and their 2 kids wanted to come down for Thanksgiving). So I am letting go my particularity and going with the flow. I'm still having something that my mom cooked, the cauliflower in cheese puff that I cooked last year. Who knows, I may twist up so tightly because I didn't have my normal turkey day spread that I will end up cooking my usual foods by the weekend. (Probably not, there's Christmas knitting to be done!)
I haven't downloaded any of the pics from my mom's trip, I will have to do that over the holiday weekend.
Anyways, have a happy and safe Thanksgiving everyone~!
I am on vacation this week! My mom is here with me in California for the first time in a few years (3, I think). We are doing lots of stuff together and having a good time. I have pictures and such, but I'll get to that another day!
The best part? Ok, the best part is that my mom is here.
The best part other than my mom being here?
I.am.not.working.this.week!
Leaving work at 10:30pm after arriving at 8:15am sucks.Will post more later about knitting space/time continuum issues.
Again, another month has abso-friggin-lutely ripped on by. People keep asking me how work is, and I keep responding that I *think* I am on the downward slope, but there are sure times when I question that! I am enjoying what I am doing and I really like the people in my department a lot, we have a great time together and I laugh quite a bit working with them every day.
Not a lot of time for me to knit lately, I can hardly believe that I have been so slow at finishing sock projects. I'm still knitting, but I have been knitting far less than usual. But, I did manage to finish one of my Marigold socks.
This is Yarntini in the Vintage colorway in the self striping yarn:
I love the colors, I love the feel of the yarn, I love the pattern. I just freaking love these socks. I don't know if after I finish these, anyone will be able to pry them off my feet! The pattern is easy, it's very much like a feather & fan pattern with a purl ridge tossed in for flavor. Here's a closeup of the leg:
I can't wait to start the second sock! I am going to do my best to get the striping to match. The skein is rather large so I don't have to worry about yardage. I am JUST past the part I needed to start at for the toe, so I'm going to have to waste a full repeat less one color segment. Maybe I can knit it into a swatch that I can make out with while I'm sitting around working. Yeah, that's what I'll do. Have myself a little swatch lubbins.
I'm still working on my beaded scarf. I did have to cut the ribbon yarn and add more beads, I was WAY short on what I strung the first time. It was impossibly hard to tell how many strands I actually managed to get strung with the whole thread tangling issue I had. Argh. It is beautiful though, I am looking forward to finishing it.
Both projects are going to have to be patient with me though, I have to finish a baby sweater for a shower I'm going to on the 10th (coincidentally the same day my mom is coming to visit, hooray!).
Oh, and the alien that is sucking my brains in the last post is a pattern I found on Ravelry on Tuesday while I was surfing the pattern page. He's a brain slug from Futurama. I used dishcloth cotton from my stash! I knit the body and the tentacles and legs on size 6 needles and then the I-cord ties are knit on size 7 needles. I started the first tie on 6's and I was like, wtf this is a tie... it doesn't need to be a tight fabric, it just needs to freaking get done! So I ripped the few rows out that I had done and started cranking out the I-cord on the bigger needles. I took a few more pics than the self-portrait one.
I totally freaking love him. It's tempting to knit another just to have him sit around or rip out the I-cords on this one so he's just a stand alone stuffed toy. I struggled to find my bags of polyfil I know I have, so I was trying to decide what alternative products I would use to stuff him with. But then I managed to get enough brain cells together to realize that I had an old pillow taking up space in my closet that I was fairly certain used polyfil stuffing. So hubby ran to grab it for me and I ripped it open and walla! Polyfil! Woot. Now I have enough stuffing for 130598103985 brain slugs! (Or amigurumi projects... no excuses left to not make some of the patterns I've been buying!)
Xi Xi says, "Zzzzzzz."
Work has still been completely kicking my ass. I am dying to cut back my workdays but wow, so much to get done before that can happen. Although, I think I am finally over the hump so I'm hoping it will slow down in the next week.I've somehow managed to finish a couple of projects, although it has taken me over a week to sit down at my computer and upload the stupid photos.I finished my Koigu Monkey socks:
The yarn is beautiful and very nice to knit with, a lovely treat for the feet.
I know the yarn isn't as durable as some yarns, but I'm fine with however long these last me. I'll enjoy wearing them. The skeins are really small though. I knit these socks on size 2 needles and they are super stretchy and the leg is a little longer than I typically make them, but damn if I didn't use all my yarn. As in, I had maybe 24 inches of yarn left over. I had to use some of the remnant of the first sock to finish the second sock and I didn't even finish the cuff in quite the same way (I had made the first sock 6 rows of garter stitch and the second sock was only 3 rows of purls). But I was out of yarn! I had no choice! They look the same from afar, and I'd be shocked if anyone ever noticed while I was wearing them that the cuffs were slightly different. Although if anyone would, it would be the OCK. Stripey freak that she is!!I also finished a dishcloth for my hubby's birthday. I was a little late getting it to him, but he likes it, lateness and all:
I started on my own bag of lies scarf, though mine isn't so much a bag of yardage lies as it is a bag of tangles. I spent multiple days unsnarling my ribbon yarn and then after measuring it so that I could get the yarn mostly divided in half, it proceeded to tangle itself up again. Though thankfully less tangled, I only spent a couple more hours unsnarling it before the bead transferring began. Which, again, there were tangles involved as my bead strands, despite my careful treatment of them, somehow got crossed so that I couldn't safely get even one strand away from the clump of other strands without losing half the string of beads. I had thought I got half of the beads, but it doesn't look to me like I'm going to finish the first half of the scarf without having to cut the yarn and add more beads. But no worries, I'm enchanted with the sparkles and I know in the end I'll be happy with the finished project. And there is definitely no chance in hell that I'll go into mass production of this kind of scarf. Ugh!
At any rate, it is late and my ass is kicked after a long work week so far and another fun night of Bunco. I think I'll definitely have sheepy dreams tonight!
Dudes. Where the hell did September go?! I am simply gobsmacked that it is October 1st. Still working tons. So much to do, not enough time to do it in. Ah well, at least the network at work will be shut down at 5pm on Thursday for our move. Yippee. I got to go to the TKGA show yesterday with the OCK. Her mom and my mother-in-law went along as well. We had a good time. It's a small show, it's got nothing on Stitches, but it was fun nevertheless. If you can believe it, I got more laceweight yarn than sock yarn! I'm branching out. *nods* At any rate, here's my booty from TKGA:
Schaefer Andrea in the colorway Mary Breckenridge (purchased from the Adela's Yarns booth):
Terilyn Needleart Zephyr Wool-Silk Laceweight in Violet:
Village Spinning & Weaving Spun Silk, colorway unnamed but very lovely:
A scarf kit with Interlacements New York ribbon yarn in colorway 113P:
And, Classic Elite Alpaca Sox in colorway 1820 Dusk:
I primarily got the Schaefer Andrea yarn because they had a sample of the Beaded Diamond Shawl on display in their booth and it was gorgeous. I couldn't resist getting a copy of it with the yarn. I think this is ooching very quickly to the top of my "to cast on" pile. Also towards the top of the heap is the beaded scarf. The shiny beads are gonna suck me in I think. If this first one goes well, I think I might get some more pre-strung beads and make another beaded scarf out of my Tess Designer Yarns ribbon yarn. The woman who sold me (and the OCK, we both got kits hah) the kit said that the Tess yarn was too rigid for the beads to slip on, but last night when she got home the OCK gave it a whirl and disproved our friendly booth vendor. I have some purple beads that I bought recently that I could possibly use for the shawl. Not sure I have enough as I only bought one tube of them, but I could go back to the store I picked them up in and grab another tube. It would be nice to give those beads a purpose, they are very pretty.
At any rate, it's late and I need to get to sleep!!
Great googly moogly. Where the hell does the time go? I have been completely slammed at work lately, there have been a good number of late nights put in this month and it sure doesn't feel like it's going to end soon. We went live with a new accounting system to replace QuickBooks, the fun with that is never ending. Some days it seems like the new system is nothing more than a steaming pile of poo. Then there are the new auditors (we fired our old ones, what a bunch of monkeys they were) that are working very diligently to finish our 2005 & 2006 audits (yeah, the old ones couldn't get their shit together to finish our 2005 audit let alone start 2006) in a 3 week time period. So when they give us a pile of stuff to put together for them, we have to jump. And it is the end of the quarter, so there is always fun associated with that. Let's see what else. Oh yeah, we're moving offices at the end of next week. Yippee. At least I get a 3 day weekend! Woohoo. No rest for the wicked until then though, ugh. So yeah, it's been fun. At least delivering my annual reviews for my employees got pushed out to next week. Oh yeah, and I have bronchitis (though I do at least have antibiotics now). Yippee.
Anyways, there has been knitting despite the madness! I posted these a few days ago on my Flickr but I am only now able to scrape together the time to blog about my progress.
I finished the first of my waving lace socks. I really love the Smooshy yarn, it is yummy stuff. The pattern is pretty too, though I was struggling to photograph it.
Here it is though on a sock blocker:
And on my tootsie:
The color is so yummy. Here's a little closer pic of the pattern:
I so have not cast on the second sock, there just hasn't been the time for that. And oh man, I am dying to cast on the Marigold Socks. I will have to cast on the second sock just so it gets on the needles even if it sits in time out while I knit the Marigold socks. Sandra really got me aching to knit them with her beautiful socks! (though she turned the toe up sock into a top down one, wtf is wrong with you Sandra!! teehee, I so totally *heart* you still, I forgive you!)
Anyways, still making progress on the second Koigu Monkey sock.
Here is a little closer pic of the sock:
I really love the colorway. It's gorgeous. And god I love how the Koigu feels. I know that it isn't necessarily the most durable of sock yarns but god it is nice to knit. And the dyes in it are gorgeous. I can hardly wait to finish. Since I took these photos, I have managed to turn the heel so I am now on my first repeat on the leg. Woohoo. Just 5 more pattern repeats to go!
I also somehow managed to bang out a dishcloth for my hubby's boss. It's not like I'm sucking up to her, I used to work with her when I worked for the consulting firm my hubby works for now. I was on the internal staff for a year, so I got to know her. She's a peach, I adore her. (I got a really sweet thank you card from her today. That was lovely after the day I had today.) Anyways, I knit her a dishcloth using the lacy round dishcloth pattern from Rhonda K. White at Knitting Knonsense.
I used Peaches 'n Creme yarn in the Gumdrops colorway. I love how this pattern turns out with variegated yarns. It is so fun.
Oh, and great googly moogly. The kittens are getting quite not-kittenish in a hurry! They tag-teamed hubby the other day and I snapped a pic:
(Please to be disregarding the crapola in the background!)
Saylor has much to say about me not being home much lately:
(How hilarious is this pic. As Kristi points out on Flickr, this pic is so ripe for lolcatesque comments!)
Before I go, I have to quickly comment on my Bunco night last night and what a blast it was. Who could turn down fine eats like this:
It was an awesomely fun evening. A nice break in the rigorous workdays I've had this month! More pics from the evening over on my Flickr.
Anyways, that's how wonderful the world of Teenuh has been lately. Here's hoping your world has been more wonderful!
