Tuesday, March 22, 2016

finished object alert

Finished Object alert Finished Object alert!

The other day I sewed in the last end and BAM there was a sweater

Bam! Sweater #finishedobject

A photo posted by Jodie (@ja_gardner) on

Details:
Yarn: Knit picks The Mighty Stitch in Gulfstream
needles: US 7
Pattern: Girl Friday

I made this for my daughter and she's roughly the same size as I am (she's taller and a bit lighter and wears about a size smaller than me) it does fit her, but I'm still hesitant to use her picture here on the blog. So I did the next best thing! I tried it on and Holey Moley guacamole it fits me.

Finished girl Friday sweater

Finished girl Friday sweater

Finished girl Friday sweater

I do think she will probably not wear it as much as *I* would like but that's ok (when she gets tired of it--it fits me!). I also think that the yarn is going to fuzz up . That sort of disappointed me because I would THINK that with a name like mighty stitch that's you'd get some good stitch definition. But alas, I'm guessing you'll get much fuzz and piling. That's based on how it knit and how it was when I handled it. It is soft though and the color will look fabulous on her!

And, I've already swatched for daughter #2's sweater. She wants a Central Park Hoodie only slightly longer than the pattern calls for (17 inch armpit to hem instead of 14 or 15 that her size calls for). I am hesitant to start with hers though. I made her a size 32 CPH out of the same yarn a few years ago (when I measured her chest at 25 and it fit her great up until this last fall). She's a 33 chest size now and I'm pretty close to guage. I know this sweater runs a bit small but I don't want to make it HUGE. I'm debating between the 36 and the 40. Probably I'll stick with the 36.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

bouts of mania

I keep having these bursts of...I don't know energy maybe... and it is making me feel like maybe my February blahs are full on bipolar. And then I just think nah, you saw the sun, you felt better and this is what better feels like.

So, I did this thing where I finished a sweater, and the person it is for tried it on and said the sleeves were too tight. And they are because I um, didn't so as much lace on them as I should, and the lace is stretchier than the stockinette. So I ripped out my beautiful seams (seriously, I got a compliment on the seams in the teachers lounge of the school I like working in the best) and knit a small panel and am sewing those in. So as they say--watch this space.

In the midst of my first bout of mania I had this idea. And I hate it when people say--I had this idea, but I can't really tell you about it but that's sort of what I'm gonna do. But I will say it is a gift idea for someone who isn't expecting a gift and probably could really use a pick me up. I wasn't sure I could pull it off but I mentioned it to my mom and my mom thought it was a great idea and well now I feel kind of stuck with it. Again, watch this space, because if it pans out I'll post it.

In the midst of my second bout of mania I decided to actually darn some of the socks that have been waiting since summer to be darned.

Darning egg? Stick? Rattle? @rachael.zarria

A photo posted by Jodie (@ja_gardner) on

I would make a terrible 19th century gentle woman. My #darning is terrible

A photo posted by Jodie (@ja_gardner) on

What actually got me going on that one was that my sock club package came with a mini nostepinne

DSCN5950

and I had fun making mini cakes of yarn from my leftover sock yarn. And seriously, thats about all it will handle.

DSCN5948

And what else would you do with a mini cake of sock yarn? Of course this pair probably should have been beyond mending but, cute little cake of sock yarn!

And my third burst of mania meant I went to a class today in spinning. Only not the fun kind of spinning, the biking kind of spinning.I haven't been able to run since October (due to an injury) and I have suspected that this is contributing to my feelings of blah. So, I thought I'd try some non impact type fitness classes. So far, I've done water zumba which made me feel uncoordinated and spinning which made me feel weak and old. But I may go back because according to my heart rate monitor I burned over 500 calories. I'll just have to see if I can move tomorrow.

Thursday, March 03, 2016

Lost days

I'm not even sure what to say happened out there in the last waning days of the shortest month of the year. Something did though.

I could come up with a ton of excuses and some of them would be pretty entertaining, but instead let's focus on what did actually happen since Feb 15th when I last wrote.

First, things picked up at my "real" job. The one I have regular hours for. The one that means I help organize a major fundraiser (for the library) three times a year. So I marked the whole week off from the "freelance job and settled in to get some serious stuff done. Instead the world laughed at me and I spent that week in meetings at school (just normal parent ones not anything huge or individualized) and fighting with my printer at work over name tags for volunteers. I did not manage that whole week to do anything else on my list. I have no idea why. So no additional jammies got done.
I did however, manage to finish the sleeve pictured in the last entry and sew together the fronts to the backs before realizing that I was supposed to block it and THEN sew it. Oh well.

Somewhere in here, I did manage to block all the pieces of the sweater.

Then boy howdy. First, one thing you should probably realize about the part of Michigan I live in. We get snow, but not a LOT of snow. It is not uncommon for us to get 4-6 inches of snow for example, and not cancel everything. But, we do have 5 or 6 (I'm not clear because I have heard different things) snow days that will be "forgiven" by the state. So, in essence we can use up to that many days without going longer into the summer. This year we've had a very mild winter. There was a big snowfall at Christmas and not much of consequence since then. Our temps have been cold, but not "air hurts my face, my snot has frozen" cold.

Ok, so Feb 22 and 23 I was busy. I worked the freelance job, and my real job and got my hair cut and went to see a lecture (given by my husband). All the while the news was talking snowstorm. First it was minor, (1-3 inches) then major (8-12 inches) and then it seemed to change hourly--everyone agreed though it was going to start Wednesday. And then Tuesday we got a winter weather warning starting Wednesday at 11am. So when we got up on the 24th for school and there was not a flake in sight of course we didn't think school was canceled. But it was. And at almost exactly 11am it started to snow. and SNOW and SNOW. Eventually the rest of the week's school was canceled and we ended up with about 10 inches of wet heavy snow.

You would THINK that given this I'd have a finished object to show you. After all what was I doing besides sitting around and knitting?

I honestly have no idea.

I do know that somewhere in there I spent FOUR DAYS trying to pick up the stitches needed on mygirl Friday sweater for the collar and button band.

The instructions indicate that you should pick up the same amount of stitches on both sides of a marker you place, and end with an odd number. So I didn't even count (because um missed the part about even number I guess) and got 105 on one side and 126 on the other. Then I ripped. I did get the odd number I needed across the collar to get an odd number over all. Then I attempted to pick up exactly 105 stitches. Something on the order of 6 times.

When I finally managed it, I set the whole thing down for a day just to bask in the glory.

Then I started knitting the collar. I won't even tell you that I didn't quite understand the directions and had to rip out 2 inches of 1X1 knitting. Ok maybe I'll tell you that, but only because I can tell you that I did somehow manage to get to a point where I am now knitting the button bands.

But I am DISTRACTED

You see in there was my birthday and also my second installment of a sock yarn and now I just want to knit socks! And wouldn't you if you spent your birthday money (in part) on these:
DSCN5849
and then Your sock club yarn looked like this:

First rule of sock club is... Ooh pretty

A photo posted by Jodie (@ja_gardner) on

Of course you would. But you'd keep on knitting the sweater like a good mom.

Sure you would.