Disasters with yarn

destructive

2012-01-25T13:29:00.000-05:00

I just realized I never did any resolutions for 2012. Probably because I didn't make any. I would love to say this is because every day is a new day and a new chance to change, but really, I was pretty lazy at New year's. That said, it is true you can change any time you decide to.

If I DID make a resolution though, it would have been to update this blog more. However, I don't have much new to report. I finished my black calorimetry, sort of. I didn't weave in the ends or find a button, but it does have a dressier look than I wanted for running. So I need to go through my yarn stash and find a yarn better for a running headband. I'm sure I have something.

I'm feeling a bit more destructive rather than creative lately. I broke my serger finishing the ends of towels. I also broke my VCR --don't judge. Both are fixed now.

Also, we recently did an overhaul of the craft room. My daughters have one side of the finished basement for their art and I have the other side for my sewing. The girls had these step two desks that they had outgrown, and a banquet table that they used. They also pile all kinds of stuff all over everything, had no where to put new things and basically were frustrated every time someone expected them to "clean the art room." So we spent 2 days of a recent 4 day weekend and cleaned off both desks, throwing away old things and recycling other things. And now the desks are out of here. We then cleaned off the banquet table--a 4 foot version and folded it up to put away. After the floor was clean we bought a new 6 foot table that the girls share (they had desk chairs at the banquet table). There is so much more space on their side of the room that it makes me feel like I should clean my side. The last time I attempted that I found several UFOs that I decided to complete (and haven't).

I wish I had taken before pictures of the art room. I suppose that is something to learn if I do decide to clean up my sewing space.

calorimetry(s)

2012-01-18T12:48:00.000-05:00

I have so many new project ideas spinning around in my head. I want to knit new cardigans for both of my girls, and was struggling to find a pattern that I liked. I had this idea in my head of top down raglan cardigans. And oh by the way they need to be kids size 10. I hit ravelry and the closest thing I cam up with is the tomboy cardigan, which I would do in long sleeves and in knit picks yarn. Except that one girl can't decide on a color. (the finalists are: dove heather, denim, orange, and a turquoise whose color name is slipping from my mind). So I can't order. Then I was noticing that knit picks is now selling silk hankies for spinning and ever since the Yarn Harlot posted about knitting knit hankies into mittens I've wanted to try it.

This is all not to say that I have not been knitting, because yes I have. I have been knitting calorimetries. It all started because I lost the one I was wearing to run with and I wanted to make a new one. So I took some leftover purple yarn from my estelle sweater and knit one. It was co-opted by my daughter enough I don't have a picture of it.
So then my other daughter was like HEY! and so I knit her one in pink:

I used Vintage by berrocco, but I'm not linking because I'm lazy. It took so little yarn too.
I like the button, which was leftover from another project:

So now I am finally knitting myself one... in black because no one likes black. I may look for a rhinestone button--mine is in Silky Wool. Actually I may have to do a different one to run in as that is sounding like I have visions of fanciness in my head. At least they are quick.

And of course I always have a sock going:

Doll clothes

2012-01-11T19:00:00.000-05:00

It occurred to me the other day that I never finished showing off the doll clothes. Probably because I finished so last minute that I sewed on snaps and wrapped. So anyway, the doll clothes were a hit, although the dolls do not get played with as much as say barbies. Also I had a pair of "leggings" not fit.
Anyway, here are the clothes:
First a jumper and blouse (this is the one with leggings to match that didn't go over the dolls posterior) :

I just loved making this one. I bought that fabric originally to make a skirt for me, but that didn't work out so I cut it up for doll dresses! I also made the shirt and leggings (same pattern, maybe this doll likes ice cream less or something!)

I actually made two coats. The other coat was pronounced the FAVORITE and did not get photographed. I made it from fleece leftover from a coat I made me. This one is made from fleece left over from a LOT of projects, but notably the stuffed alien I made her many many years ago.

I did enjoy making doll clothes and I promised to remake the leggings. So I may be doing more of that in the future. I've had a bad case of the I do not want to do anythings and so have started on a sock and am dreaming up a big knitting project. But I haven't actually finished either yet.

finished

2011-12-22T19:45:00.000-05:00

At the last possible moment, I finished the second teacher gift. This one for the teacher's aide.

Both gift have been given, and very much appreciated.

This year I used gift tags from Jill AKA Kniterella. Kniterella makes great gift tags, and has a whole line of funny ones, but I chose to go with the more traditional. If you ever saw her funny tags and thought, it wasn't quite right for your occasion, then you should know that she also has these (and lots of others too!) and they look really elegant.

The pattern is Fishtail lace scarf this one in Knit picks Shimmer. I used a size 4 needle.

jammies

2011-12-15T20:36:00.001-05:00

I know I'd be doing terrible at the posting every day thing, but I set my expectations LOW! Post more often and when you sometimes go weeks without posting even once a week is more often.

I've been a little panicky on my gift knitting, so I need to get back to that, but I wanted to tell you al about the OTHER gifts I'm making this year.
You see, I'm making clothes for each of my daughters' 18 inch doll. I bought a few patterns when Joann's had them for $2 a piece. They were out of the one I really wanted that had PJs and a bathrobe and underwear(!), but I really wanted to make PJs. Because I had this great flannel I wanted to use.

And so I have been sewing away on doll clothes. And so far the only completed outfits I have done are the jammies. As everything else either needs snaps or buttons or to be finished. I'm thinking three outfits for each daughter. Jammies, a coat and pants, and a jumper dress with leggings and a shirt. And so I present to you the jammies

The panda flannel is perfect for this daughter:

And pink monkeys are a great choice for the other:

I can't decide if the closures go in front or back. Maybe they look better as fronts, but the pink monkeys came out a little crooked.

Anyway, I still have snaps to sew on the coats (and buttons) and one jumper dress and one shirt to finish and some snaps to sew on both jumper dresses. And ten days. TEN. Plus a scarf to finish.

operation upgrade wreath

2011-12-12T12:58:00.000-05:00

I am feeling really rushed on one of the presents I am knitting for Christmas. Panicky even. So I'm taking time out to tell you about something I did when I could have been knitting. In fact I'm taking the 15 minutes of knitting time I have this morning to tell you about the 45 minutes of knitting time I "wasted."

See, my outdoor wreath (plastic) is old. In fact we bought it at an after Christmas sale in 1997. And frankly I was tired of it. I wanted a new one. However, a trip to Michael's told me that unless I wanted to shell out $50 for one now or take my chances and try to get it after Christmas for $25 that I was stuck with my old wreath.

Thankfully I was not alone on this shopping adventure. The intrepid FinnGarian was with me and she pointed out that all the Christmas ribbon and floral doo-dahs were 50% off and gave me all the moral support I needed. Also she sent me a webpage to learn to tie my own Christmas bows. Plus she clued me in on the need to buy floral wire. So really this was her fault! But less than $10 later I had supplies for my very own do it yourself operation upgrade wreath.

So I dragged one (I actually used to have a matching set) out and took the before shot:

I removed the blue bow and a possibly real pinecone (which fell out when I removed the bow) and set to work.

First, I played and played and played and finally got the bow tied the way I wanted it. (see This site is what I eventually used. Then I played with placement of the bow vs two "things" (one was a silver bird and the other a purple fern thingy) and got them where I wanted. Argued with my daughters on placement and then wired them in. I think it looks great:

Purples don't always read true with my camera, which also highlighted to me that the purples were just a tiny bit off. Still I love it and it is now hanging up outside and I'm happy. Plus I have learned that if the purples feel dated to me next year a change out is as easy as 40 minutes and a few $ at the craft store.

ipod sock

2011-12-07T16:26:00.000-05:00

Normally, I probably wouldn't post this project, but I am trying to update more this month to jump start me into the habit of updating more often all year long.

So I finished this tiny little ipod cozy. I made it out of leftover sock yarn that is knit picks, and given to me by the lovely Karen, but I've lost the ball band. It is discontinued at any rate. I just wanted something to keep my ipod from getting scratched when it is in my purse. It also gets cold in my office which is very chilly, but I only notice that when I slip it into my pocket.

I didn't follow a pattern, I just basically cast on "enough" stitches and used a 2X2 rib until it was long enough then kitchnered the end.

The reason I probably would not have put it up here is this: it looks a little wonky. In fact it looks really wonky like my tension was uneven or something. At first I thought it was because while I am usually pretty good about not getting loose stitches between my dpns, I'm not so hot at that when the first stitch on the new needle is a purl. And that happened a bunch until I said--look let's fix this. I don't mind how it looks, but you know it was a little disappointing.

Then I was between projects, as I had to order yarn for teacher gift the second and I had a day where I needed something to knit. So I started some socks. Just some basic toe up jobbies out of some knit picks felici. I decided though to knit these a little tighter than normal, but only after I had about 1/2 inch of toe started. So I unravelled and then looked for my zeros, since I was sure that the needles I was using, which had come almost directly from the ipod sock were ones. But my needle case had both sets of ones missing (you know there are two mm sizes to size 1 needles right). I decided to see which ones I was using, because maybe if I were using the big ones, the smaller ones would be enough. And that's when I discovered it.

On my ipod sock, I used two different sized needles.

wonkiness explained.

Teacher gift the first

2011-12-06T13:25:00.000-05:00

I am a really indecisive person. I am. This has carried over a lot to my knitting. There are many times that I can't decide on the patterns, the colors the yarn and times I can't decide if I like the gauge I have.
Probably the think I worry the most about is gift knitting.
I like to make a Christmas (holiday) gift for the teacher that my daughters have. And I also make a gift for the classroom aide if there is one. Even if she's assigned to help a particular student, because I know her presence makes the class run smoother.

When they were in Kindergarten, I made scarves for both the teacher and the classroom aide. I made the same pattern from different yarns, and I ended up liking the aide's scarf better. And I think she liked it too because I saw her wear it many many times. In first grade I made the teacher a scarf that was a bit more dressy. I don't think I ever saw her wear it, but that's ok because she has a teenage daughter who may have worn it or she may not have been a scarf person. In second grade, I got on the necklace kick and made a ton of necklaces including one for the teacher and the aide in the class who was by coincidence the same aide who had been the kindergarten aide.

This year the teacher is very young/hip and so for once I didn't really worry too much about her gift. My daughters assured me she "wears lots of scarves and not all of them look warm." So I bought some Shadow Tonal from knit picks (with color help from my girls who really do have an eye for color) . OOh I see that Blue yonder, the color I used, is being discontinued.
Anyway, I had a pattern picked out to use with it, but when I was searching ravelry for um something anyway, I came across this free knit picks pattern called Fishtail lace scarf.
It is a quick pattern that knit up really fast:

Have I mentioned how much I want to keep this for me?

Next up: the girls have the same instructional aide as LAST year and kindergarten so this is her third handmade item from me.

Estelle

2011-12-02T13:14:00.000-05:00

So, I had this crazy idea that perhaps I was behind enough to try to put up a post every weekday in December. But then Dec 1 came and went with no post from me. And I had the best of intentions too, I just got a little too busy working on the doll clothes I'm sewing for Christmas, and then I spent my "designated blog time" agonizing over a decision that I need to make. (career wise rather than knitting, so it is kinda boring).
But I did prepare for blogging by photographing my recently finished sweater!

The sweater pattern is Estelle and the yarn is Lark in crocus from Quince and Co.

I can't remember the needle size but ravelry tells me I used a size 6. I could have made this a size bigger I think. It doesn't quite close in the front, and while the length looks fine I was thinking if it were maybe an inch longer, I'd feel better about it. But no way am I ripping out the 350 some stitches I picked up for the edging to add an inch or two. I did rip out both sleeves because I initially made them too long and this time got them just about the perfect length.

I don't think it is supposed to close in the front, as there are no buttons, but it does make me feel a bit chunky to not have it close. At any rate, I like it and it is warm. And warm is good as we got our first snow of the fall (winter) and I'm feeling very chilly. In fact this got so warm that I had to take it off when I was cleaning up after dinner because it was a might too warm. But earlier int he day I ran into the grocery store with out a coat (41 degrees) because I just felt warm enough with this sweater on.

the LIST

2011-11-21T15:26:00.001-05:00

I hesitate to say this, but I feel I have this real bipolar relationship with my knitting. Sometimes I have a gazillion projects I want to do or have started and sometimes, it takes all my energy to even think of one. But I hate calling it bi-polar because it seems like I'm making light of something that is actually very serious. And I do not wish to make light of it. At the same time it is a pattern I've noticed--either I feel all meh about knitting or sewing anything or I want to knit it ALL.

Lately, I've been in more of the down stage. I started working on my Estelle sweater to kind of move me out of it. And I've drudged along convinced that I may not be making the right size on Estelle and then suddenly it is finished. Except that the sleeves are a bit too long and the length is a bit shorter than I'd like. I did rip out the sleeves and need to re-knit the cuffs. I'll have to think about length because that would mean ripping out the 250 something stitch edging.

Then I realized that I needed to get going on teacher gifts and so I started a Fishtail lace scarf in shadow tonal (and I am coveting it). I knit on it all the time and while I feel like it is not growing at all, it seems to magically grow overnight. At last measure I have 41 inches.

I also realized in the middle of Estelle that I need to knit some sort of thing to carry around my ipod in and started a sock, but I really think I need a felted something.

Then I was asked to make a chemo cap for a middle schooler in pink/orange or something funky, and bought yarn.

But I still need another idea for a teacher gift for the classroom aide, who has been in the girls' classroom 3 of their 4 years in elementary school (So I have, in past years, made her a scarf and a necklace). Although she has a new winter coat since I made the scarf.

To top this off, I'm thinking that it would be especially nice to make some extra doll clothes for Christmas this year. And Joann's had patterns on sale for 1.99.

You will notice that there are no pictures accompanying this entry. This is because I am lazy. I have been so bad with photos this year that come mother's day when I go to make calendars for my mother in law, I will have NO pictures. And my kids are always my favorite subjects.

Nothing in this pile is finished, but I'm hoping that over the next few weeks, some of it will be and I will try really hard to photograph things in the next few weeks.

halloween

2011-11-02T18:38:00.003-04:00

I've seen a lot this year about taking back halloween for girls. Basically calling for the end of the slutty costumes. I totally agree with this by the way and am horrified at the differences I see in boy and girl stuff generally (last year one of my girls had "boy boots" because only one style of "girl boots" were actually waterproof and they had one of that style in their size--and I have 2 girls the same size). But I thought oh my girls are eight, they won't have that much of a battle, if we stick to the pattern books like we usually do.

Well, thank you Simplicity for putting the adult costumes in with the kids costumes in the pattern book. One of my daughters saw this:

She thought the black swan was the creepiest thing she EVER saw and instantly asked if she could be that. After much discussion we agreed I'd buy this pattern:

And make it all black. This was deemed acceptably creepy.

My other daughter could not decide for a long time and then in the end decided to be this primarily because of the hair.

Actually these costumes didn't go together badly. The main problem I encountered was the sequined fabric for the rock star. It was hard to cut, gummed up my sewing needle and was impossible to press. The tu tu on the ballerina costume wasn't even sewn, it was merely tied on. So tulle is awkward and everything, but one afternoon had the whole thing done.

I think they turned out well.

yarn thoughts

2011-10-20T14:54:00.002-04:00

I don't really have much new to report. I'm still working away on Estelle and still putting the finishing touches on the halloween costumes. (one sleeve and some elastic and a hem respectively)
I've aslo been searching madly for thy frequent buyers card for my LYS as I want to buy something and I think was close to the reward.
Alas, it is nowhere I have looked. I have a gift certificate to knit picks (and one for my LYS--hence the card search) and I've been thinking about using it for MONTHS and my thought process always goes something like this:
I'm almost done with what I'm knitting, what do I want to knit next?
hmm maybe socks? Yes, but I have a ton of sock yarn in my stash.
Ok but maybe I want more conservative socks. like black maybe. but I never wear black. ok maybe brown?
I really don't need any more new socks, I have a lot of handknit socks, one for every day of the week plus extras.
but I don't have red.
or brown
Man I'm chilly, I should knit myself another sweater.
I already have 6 sweaters that I knit and a few I bought
Well I don't have a red one. I saw a nice sweater that was in red in a book. hmmm what was that book again?
Oh yes, Knits that fit the Sophisticated hoodie Although the stitch pattern would be a pain
I don't have any red socks to wear with it.
Maybe I should just buy some red yarn and make a different sweater.
Maybe I should just knit from my stash.
There is no RED in my stash!
Sadly, this kind of thinking goes on for a while, until I convince myself that I need red yarn. Then I fail to find a pattern I like and a few months later I see all this red yarn in my stash and think--why in the world did I buy all this red yarn?

picture-less update

2011-10-12T12:52:00.002-04:00

Sometimes it is terribly hard to keep this blog updated. Not because I'm not knitting. or sewing. I am, I really am. But rather because I don't have any pictures of what I am working on. And so a month later I still have no pictures, but thought I'd update on my progress.knitting: I cast on for Estelle, which if you don't care to follow the link is a cardigan knit from the top down int eh round with some waist ribbing and feather and fan borders. I'm using the recommended yarn (Lark from Quince and Co) in a purple. I LOVE it. Lark is squishy and it felts well (so be careful). I'm on the first sleeve, which I had started to knit in the wrong sized needle, so had to rip out about 5 inches and start again. I'd have a picture of it except that I have not figured out how to photograph purples in a way that they look true to color. Halloween costumes: This year my daughters have decided after carefully looking at every single pattern book at Joann Fabrics to be: a rock star and an evil ballerina. The evil ballerina was inspired by the section in the pattern books where they mix the adult "hootchie" costumes with the kid costumes. My daughter saw a picture of the Black swan and immediately decided that was the creepiest costume in ANY book and demanded to be that. Basically I'm making a black ballerina costume. Yesterday I finished the tu tu. Which was the last piece for that costume. Imagine 15 yards of tulle cut into strips and tied.The rock star shirt is finished and I hope never ever ever to have to sew with confetti glitter fabric EVER again. It doesn't iron (it melts the glue that holds the confetti on), and it gets your sewing machine needle all globed up. Thankfully the rock star pants are shiny pink fabric, and relatively easy. How great is it that I'll most likely be all done with costumes nearly 2 weeks before the big day! Also no pictures because I think costumes look better ON kids ON halloween. So pictures later.Other than that, I'm just enjoying the nice weather here in Michigan, knowing that when my Estelle Sweater is done, it will be cold enough to wear it!

yarn

2011-09-14T15:00:00.000-04:00

Whenever I try to talk to my husband about knitting, say try to get an opinion out of him he says to me "yarn yarn yarn yarn yarn". (Imagine that done in a Charlie Brown adult voice). But in all honesty most of what makes knitting fun and fabulous or disappointing is yarn. When I first started knitting, I was like a lot of people and entranced by yarn. Sadly for me, a lot of that yarn was yarn I would not use now. Then, I was attracted to Fun! Interesting! fibers. Now, I want simpler yarn.

I say this all because it goes a long way in explaining why I thought it would be a good idea to buy enough yarn to make a vest in Moda Dea Dream. In green no less! Can you imagine, I'd have looked a bit like Oscar the grouch. It explains why I have a poncho made of homespun. It feels like a big blanket and is comfy but oh my goodness I hope to never have to knit with homespun ever again, it is so squeaky.

I made a pair of socks out of tofutsies and they got multiple holes in it and I decided that perhaps soy yarn isn't great for socks.

It also explains one of the oldest skeins in my stash. I knew that it was banana silk, but it took a search in ravlery to determine it was Frabjous fibers banana silk. Multicolored of course. I just have one skein. I have no idea what I thought I would make with it. I just look at it and know that I bought it because it was shiny and silky and made of bananas! I dug it out the other day intending to make a scarf from it. I tried a drop stitch pattern and was unsatisfied and ripped it out. Then I started a narrower garter stitch scarf, and a movie at the same time. So now I have an almost 4 foot long garter stitch scarf in banana silk... and I hate it.

While I was trying to decide what to do--rip it out and make something narrower, rip it out and do nothing, rip it out and try a new pattern--I started Estelle in a yarn that is more me these days: Quince and company Lark.(in purple)

Of course any and all suggestions about the banana silk are welcomed.

yarn yarn yarn yarn.....

food

2011-09-12T14:57:00.000-04:00

I'll get back to yarn and knitting soon. but one reason I have not been writing so much is that I've been really busy with food! I made the peach jam of course, then froze enough peaches for a crisp and for several peach lassis. I still have another week of peach season, so I may freeze more--or maybe make some fresh lassi. Or you know I do actually eat fresh peaches.Liz, friend of mine told her facebook friends that she was going to cook every recipe in Jamie Oliver's food revolution. A friend of hers said she should blog about it. Like every day! Like Julie and Julia! Sure, let's make both cooking and blogging a chore. But she did blog or maybe just note on facebook two recipes she'd made, and they both sounded really good. So I checked the cookbook out of my local library. Let me tell you, I love this cookbook. I love that the steps are laid out. I love that the recipes are easy. I love that every recipe has a picture and STEP pictures. My kids gravitated towards a shell pasta dish which also happens to be on his website.My kids actually do eat a lot of vegetables, (and one lists quinoa as a favorite food) but since they were so gung ho (it was the shell pasta) that was the first one we made. And oh my was it good. First off, it took less than 30 minutes to make. then it was good. THEN it made a ton so we had leftovers. My girls had 2 helpings each.I managed to snap a picture of it:Then our farm share has been giving us a lot of winter squash. While I have a few butternut squash recipes I like, I am usually stumped when it comes to acorn squash. I don't like them except in soups. Enter Jamie Oliver and his sweet potato and chorizo soup. My husband made it substituting an acorn and a butternut squash for the sweet potatoes. Again. Oh my. My children thought it a "little zippy" and only had a spoonful. so we have a ton leftover. Which is ok because YUM. I didn't take a picture and he doesn't have the recipe online, but trust me on this. It was good. I have 2 or 3 more recipes I want to try from there. I have no need to cook my way through it, but I am enjoying it. Back to yarn next time.

busy back soon....

2011-09-07T15:00:00.001-04:00

I have been busy lately. I will get back to writing more regularly soon, but in the meantime I finished some socks. The legs are a good reminder of gauge issues--one leg was done on larger needles (a fact which was forgotten by me until I finished the second sock with smaller needles). needless to say the pattern on the socks doesn't match.

long over due...

2011-08-25T15:37:00.001-04:00

It has been a month almost since I last updated. I still haven't made the peach jam, although maybe next week. I've made two batches of pesto--one is in the freezer and one in the fridge and then I knit this:

It is the Lodi cardigan I mentioned in the last entry . I ended up with yarn leftover, so I could have made the sleeves a tad longer. I ended up using buttons that I originally purchased for my first central park hoodie, but I think they look better on this sweater.

What I did not think looked good was how I looked compared to the model in this sweater. I feel frumpy while she looks very chic. Then it was pointed out to me that perhaps if I buttoned the cardi in the middle, it would accentuate my waist and I would look not as A line and boxy. and lo and behold when I went to look at the picture to link to this entry, what did I notice--the model is wearing hers with a middle button buttoned! All in the styling I tell you.

I keep thinking that this is the time to start the dollar and a half cardigan. That way it will be ready to wear when it starts to get cooler. but then I start to feel all overwhelmed.
Patterns are on sale at Joann's over labor day weekend, so halloween costumes are just around the corner!

summer knitting

2011-07-28T13:57:00.000-04:00

Jam update for posterity: 3 batches of strawberry, 1 batch of sour cherry, blueberry to be determined. Peaches just coming in.

sock update: I'm tired of making plain socks

Back in April, when my LYS had it's annual sale, I picked up seven skeins of Rowen summer tweed in denim, thinking that I would make a summer short sleeved tee. Then summer actually hit and the thought of wearing yarn, even cotton/silk yarn, repulsed me.

Before that happened though, I picked a copy of Summer 2011 Knitscene, because it had several top down raglan style Tee patterns.

A few days ago, I threw down the sock I was knitting because my goodness was I bored and I started contemplating something different. A sweater maybe. I dug out all my stuff from the dollar and a half cardigan and decided that would be too hard. I need something simple but not mindless. So I dug out the summer tweed and started envisioning a shrug. I have a pattern I want to make someday, but twice now I've gone into it with yarn, swatched and missed gauge by enough that I don't dare attempt it. But something funny happened while I was swatching, I started seeing not lace, but a raglan style shirt/cardigan something.

And so, last night instead of reading before bed, I flipped through Knitscene looking at all the patterns, looking for one with the gauge I had and the amount of yarn I had (because sale =none left I'm sure). I'm reasonably close on both gauge and amounts on the Lodi Cardigan . I'm only 75 yards short--surely that's the difference between 3/4 length sleeves and short ones?

Please somebody get ready to say I told you so, in a month when I complain about being too short to finish.

RAINBOW socks

2011-07-07T12:01:00.001-04:00

It has been a while but I have many things to report. First, I made 3 batches of strawberry freezer jam. I ended up having lots leftover from last year but I think that had to do with making 2 batches of blueberry instead of one, and then not making the strawberry ganache that I frequently make. So I made three again this year. I only have one more jam from last year to use up now, see it is easy to give away extras.

I also went on a long car trip to see my mom and brought along my rainbow socks, dyed from a sock blank that I spoke about last time. I cast on shortly after I posted that entry--a basic toe up. I struggled with--should I make them super long or should I save roughly half the yarn for something else and decided I could do a rainbow scarf too if I stopped. So I did. When we got back from our short trip (1 week!) I had this:

And a few days after we got back I had this:

These have to be the fastest socks I have ever knit. EVER. And I've started a new pair. But now I'm thinking perhaps I need a second project going. Either the rainbow scarf (lacy!) or a sweater--maybe dollar and a half as I am feeling braver.

socks!!!!

2011-06-21T14:18:00.001-04:00

Thanks to everyone who commented on the crooked shrug. I am going to try it open and see how it feels. Right now we are in the middle of humid weather though so I'm not sure when I'll feel like having a shrug on.

Also I'm not sure when I'll feel like wearing socks again, but when I do I'll have these:

I just finished the second sock--after having the first one done for a few months.

Pattern is wandia from Sock innovation
Yarn is a handdyed from Threadbear Fiber studio which seems to have closed.

It wasn't really the sit by the pool and chat kind of pattern, though, so for summer I want to have something easy going. Just some nice plain vanilla toe up socks. Something I can pull out and knit on and chat with people while my kids play. I have just the thing of course. Sock blank!

A while ago (maybe 2 years!) I dyed a sock blank from knit picks

The idea is that you then knit two socks at the same time from it, unraveling as you go. I haven't mastered the whole two at a time thing, and while I may someday, that's not quite the summer thing I had in mind. so I unraveled mine and wound two balls. I did discover I didn't get the dye all the way through so it is whiter than I want, but ahhh well....

I'm shrugging about this....

2011-06-15T15:08:00.000-04:00

So, the shrug. I finished it. I had to russian join on the buttonhole band to get it to cast off. And I could not pick up the 83 stitched I had on the left front. I got as for as 60 and was out of room.

And my friends there is a good reason for this, because of course the shrug that I have had to repeatedly rip and reknit has not gone gentle into the night. Oh not, it has a major flaw. One that if I want to really fix, will require a HUGE chunk of ripping. And frankly, given that I think I might have 10 yards of yarn left may not be even feasible.

Anyway, when I wear it open it looks like this:

Looks good doesn't it. And that is the dress I bought it for and as you can see the purples, while not totally true in the picture, do actually match! And it looks really good until....

You think about buttoning it. And that's when you'll realize that somehow someway I managed to knit one side almost two inches longer than the other.
TWO INCHES!!

I think the two inches is in the sleeve cap. I have no idea what to do with it. And at this point, it might be easier to walk lopsided. Although truthfully it doesn't show if it is unbuttoned, but it doesn't hang quite right.

There is a reason that I called this blog Disasters with yarn......

shrug again

2011-06-09T14:55:00.001-04:00

I thought by now I'd be showing you a picture of a finished purple shrug. And I would be too if it weren't for you pesky kids. No wait, I would be if it weren't for one little tiny problem.
I think I'm running out of yarn.

I have all the major pieces knit. I have them all sewn together. I have the collar and the button band done. And I have little tiny balls of yarn left. And so I also have a major hangup.

Last night I took a deep breath and started in on the buttonhole band. I finished it! I had yarn to spare! I tried it on and whoops. See, on the button band I had picked up 83 stitches and on the buttonhole band it came out to like 56 and I thought "well I am just spacing them farther out and that's not a bad thing." In reality I was... let's just say not in reality. I don't know why but for some reason I didn't pick up stitches all along the front, I missed about an inch at the top and about 2 on the bottom.

So I ripped it out. Actually I'm thinking of renaming this shrug on ravelry to the frog shrug. I think I have had to rip back on almost every piece of this. I can't remember about the back and I think the first sleeve was pretty uneventful.

So now I have a little less yarn (because yes I wove in my ends and trimmed) and more buttonhole band to knit. I'd buy another skein but I bought this yarn OVER a year ago and I really don't want to pay another 9.50 to use such a small amount. Also--this yarn doesn't russian join very well.

Alas, I think I just need to take a deep breath and knit. I am SO close.

shrug

2011-06-03T10:19:00.000-04:00

I have not been sewing lately, so I have no new blocks to show off. But I am making progress with my purple shrug:

Plus, I have one sleeve done. I hit a snag with sleeve two and need to rip back 3 rows and am being all wah wah wah about it.

One thing that really saved me on this project was this blog. When I picked it back up I couldn't remember all the modifications I had made to the pattern. See I'm starting with a henley pattern and converting it into a shrug. So i lopped off the entire bottom half. But then I couldn't remember what size I had been making (39--thanks Ravelry) or which needles I was using (3 and 4--thanks again ravlery). And then on the hem, when I started the new side (right I think) I looked back at my old blog posts and I mentioned, I'm making a bigger hem than the pattern calls for because it curled as written. So then I counted and the pattern calls for a 5 row hem and I had made a 10 row hem. I'm so terrible at writing out details that frankly I am amazed I was able to pick this up a year later and have it not look so mismatched.

Other mods I have made: I am making short sleeves for this, and debated heavily if the sleeves should have the hemmed border or start directly with lace. I decided on hemmed in case the lace curled. I went ahead and did the three needle bind offs instead of blocking each piece separately on stitch holders. And I need to figure out the collar and button bands since I went for a provisional cast on hem instead of a sew it together hem (seriously IK--whipstich?).

I think if I were going to do another one of these I would probably not do the garter selvedge and instead do a stockinette selvedge, because generally I am good at sewing up, but I really hate sewing up garter stitch.

I was hoping to get this finished by yesterday so I could wear it out for a fancy lunch. But I have a fancy dinner and another fancy lunch coming up soon. However, I don't think that it will be done in time for those either.

selvedge log cabin

2011-05-27T14:01:00.000-04:00

I don't know if I've ever said as much here, but I don't sew a whole lot. Mostly I knit. But for me sewing is kind of cathartic. The rat tat tat of the machine, the alone time in the basement where it is cooler than the rest of the house, with usually just me and the radio, soothes me when I am stressed. In the days leading up to my grandmother's death--when we knew this was "it" I quilted a double bed sized quilt, just for the comfort of the rat tat tat.

I've been sewing nearly every day these days. It is cooler in the basement, and I can lose my thoughts in the fabric.

I've been doing these selvedge log cabins--throwing on scraps and making something (hopefully beautiful) from them. The pattern calls for 36. I have 10. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this when I am done. I don't need another quilt, especially of that size (the blocks are 9.5 inches).

selvedge

2011-05-19T10:09:00.001-04:00

And now for something completely different:

My MIL has given me 6 bags of selvedge edges ever since I saw a book about quilting with them. Now I guess is the time to do something with them....

Central Park Hoodie!

2011-05-16T20:43:00.000-04:00

Last Monday as the temperatures soared into the upper 70s, I finished my all wool Central Park hoodie.

I did get a chance to wear it for a few hours at work, where the air conditioner made it comfy. but I didn't really get a good picture until Sunday when the temps went back down into the 50s.

It fits! And I have one skein of the beautiful Lark (in leek!) from Quince and Company left. I can not recommend this yarn enough. And when I had to get more (I would have been one short in my original), Pam Allen was gracious enough to make sure I had the right dyelot. It is so sproingy and was such fun to work with.

I was going to say, I can't wait to wear it, but I am really looking forward to summer. Instead I'll say--I'll be taking every opportunity to wear it. Or maybe I'll just have it out this week. At any rate, I loved knitting with this yarn so much I bought the pattern Estelle and enough yarn to make it (for my birthday).

perfect storm

2011-05-09T20:24:00.001-04:00

About a year ago, I got fed up with this shrug I was making. In the picture you might be able to see why:

I had the left front nearly done before I realized that the arm hole decrease was about 1.5 inches shorter than the ones I'd made for the back. And it was lace, and I just couldn't focus enough to rip it back. So I put it away and moved on to other projects.

Until Saturday.

Saturday a perfect storm occurred. The day was sunny and warm, but it wasn't the first sunny warm day. My kids were happy to play outside and didn't seem to need anything. My husband was off at a work function and the dishes were clean.

In the end, I ripped back row by row, backwards counting on my counter. Thankfully, the lace pattern is easy to read and so I realized I was only a row or two off in my rough counting. Soon, I had the yarn wound up and had knitted a few new rows. Since then, I've done most of the sleeve decreases. I'm going to finish this, and in time to wear this summer too.

tale of two sleeves

2011-04-27T14:18:00.001-04:00

I have a confession about sleeves. I don't really like making them. It probably stems from the first ever sweaters I knit (about the 5th and 6th things I ever knit respectively). Both sweaters were the same pattern, same yarn (different colors), done on the same needles and all 4 sleeves came out different lengths!
I have gone so far as to do both sleeves at the same time to get even lengths. Mostly, I find just paying attention to the pattern usually gets me within a few rows. And this was the case in my sleeves for the central park hoodie. Because of the pattern, I was able to determine, that I was within 4 rows.

I suppose I should also say that I don't pay much attention to row gauge. I always figure that the pattern will say--knit until piece measures X inches. I do pay attention to stitch gauge, but I also confess, I don't record before and after blocking measurements.

I suppose that it is no surprise then to note that if you compare a blocked sleeve to an unblocked sleeve you get this:

Blocked one is on the right.
Ironically the one on the left is a little longer.
Not so ironically, these are going to be really long on me.

earrings!

2011-04-22T20:35:00.000-04:00

I have all the major pieces done on my Central park hoodie, and I have the extra yarn, although now I'm sure I have way too much. And I had an idea to do an entry about blocking that puppy. But it will have to wait.

I also have a bunch of knitting I want to do--almost all of it summer knitting, and I'll blog about that once I get my thoughts in order.

I did repair my daughter's sweater, but I only took pictures of the hole before and the hole after and not really any in process. So I'll tell you this, she managed to snag and break off some yarn in such a way that it was really only effecting 2 rows of stitches. So I did what might be seen as a spot of darning--I wove in the end real good, looped the two loose stitches several times, wove around it, in case it was loose in other places and wove in the ends. Then I noticed one of the cuffs was a little ratty, so I cut it off, picked up the stitches and knit a new one. You can tell if you look at it, because the new does not look lie a child wore it happily through two years of outside play. I also bound it off with a sewn bind off because it felt clever. And I wanted to get her hand through it.

I'm glad I made those sweaters big--even though it might be time this winter to make new ones.

I also finished an object:

Don't look at it big because it is blurry. Of course photographing earrings is hard--if you don't believe me you should check out etsy!
I finally figured out the whole how to get them on the earring thing. I think stitch markers might be in my future. Of course I didn't make one pair, I made three. Two blue and one green.

I don't know, but I think I might not be as good at this whole jewelry thing--I took three necklaces to the mom to mom sale, marked them $10 which I thought was fair, and none of them sold. So remember how I made so many and I didn't have any for me? Well now I have three. I'm going to make another one just for me, and I wanted to make earrings to match, but I don't know quite how to do that yet. The closest I have is a blue necklace, and those blue earrings, which I wore to work the other day as a set and no one said anything, which means either--ha you look terrible or wow, we didn't even think they looked homemade. I also bought a dress, which just happens to look good with both of these (and needs a little shrug--see summer knitting decisions). I guess I like them and that's all that matters right now.

Ok, next time, I hope to have a big list of what I want to knit this summer!

easily distracted

2011-04-13T13:34:00.000-04:00

I had an entry started but I think this might be a better one to describe this and any other long absence I have from this blog. I am easily distracted.

I say this because I still haven't finished my central park hoodie--although I am on sleeve number 2 and I am certain I will have enough yarn to finish that sleeve, but not enough for the hood and trim. I'm attempting to get more. Usually my second fear is that it will be too small (or too big) and so I've been blocking pieces of this sweater, and I'm more hopeful of its fit.

But I haven't been spending as much time on that as I could. I started the second sock of the screaming green variety--have gotten it cast on and 1/4 inch of ribbing.

Then there is this sale thing coming up this weekend and I wanted to make a few necklaces to see how they'd sell. So I did.

Then at the library I got ahold, by accident because Dewey was so helpful in putting the knitting books near the beading books, this book on making stringed beaded jewelry that shows you how to make earrings that I LOVE. And it doesn't look too hard. (Stringing beaded jewelry in case you are curious). And honestly stitch markers are very similar in construction.

And then one of my daughters brought out a sweater I knit for her and it has a hole. And I thought, I'll blog that repair. So I have that in the works!
So you see, I distract easily, but I hope that it will all come together soon and you'll see post after post after post. Now, though, I need to go buy some earring findings.

I'm still here!

2011-03-16T14:59:00.001-04:00

You'd think after a month of not posting, I'd have a finished object to show you. I don't, but I am making progress:

For some reason that picture has some odd colors, my carpet is grey and the sweater green. I'm loving this yarn (from Quince and company).
I have the back and most of the sides done. I'm still worried about my usual sweater things--fit and running out of yarn.
I was trying to get it finished in time for St. Patrick's day, but this isn't going to happen.

I also had a birthday in the time I was gone, and got lots of gift certificates for yarn, so I'm trying to plan some projects. My husband tells me I probably have enough sweaters though. (as if such a thing exists).

I am also making lots of other beaded necklaces for an event coming up. I think I've lost my tremendous excitement for them, even though I am still enjoying making them.

So, I've been busy even if I haven't been posting. Hopefully soon I'll have some other projects to show off.

Green

2011-02-20T11:03:00.001-05:00

February is a busy month for me. I'm not sure exactly why but for some reason February gets crazy every year. And this year is no exception. In fact if my kids did not have a rare 4 day weekend, I'm not sure I'd have the time to write this today.

I have been knitting though--I finished the first of the screaming green socks:

Pattern is Wanida from Sock Innovation the yarn is from ThreadBEar in lansing--some of their handdyed. It really is VERY green. My problem is that I'm kind of being handicapped by my indecision. YOu see I finished this sock over a week ago and I haven't started the second. Not because I don't like the pattern or the yarn, but because I'm not sure this sock isn't way too big.

See when I knit my gauge swatch, I decided that the pattern gauge wasn't as important as the fact that the sock had to actually fit me. So I tried on my swatch and discovered it was a little snug. So I ripped out and went up from a size 1 to a size 1.5. But all along the knitting I felt like this sock was just HUGE. Except every time I put it on it fit. It isn't snug like some socks I've knitted are, but I am afraid that by the end of a day of wearing them it will feel all baggy and loose and I'll hate that. So I've put off starting the second sock. Although honestly I could make a second sock on the smaller needles and see what happens.

In the meantime, I've decided to knit something else for a while:

I seem to be on a green kick.

red and gold

2011-02-04T14:11:00.002-05:00

You would think that a snow day (or two) would make for some knitting results. But alas, I still have about an inch more on my screaming green socks and then I'll start the toe--which makes me feel like I have HUGE feet (the better to walk through the snow with).

But then I remembered, I made this:

As a birthday present for a friend, I went and bought red and gold beads special as these seem to be the colors she wears the most. I still have yet to finish one for me. Better get on that!

jinx

2011-01-23T14:47:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure what happened to me but for some reason I've been having problems getting excited about my knitting. Maybe I felt like I was making too many mistakes and getting worried about starting new things in case my knitting had been jinxed or something.
One project that I had had sitting for far too long was this pair of baby socks:

I had the second one ready to kitchner and I realized they were not the same size and somewhere along the line I had made an error or something. So in an effort to exorcise the knitting jinx, I finally ripped back and finished the second one properly. Now I just need to get them mailed to where they need to go.

Jinx fixed, I started a pair of socks for me. The pattern is from Sock innovation and the yarn is a hand dyed (not by me) called appropriately enough: screaming green. I'm pretty sure they are going to be too big, but they do go over my foot.

I think it might be residual jinx feeling. But I am prepared to rip this one out, if indeed when it is done it is too big--and restart it on smaller needles. I am.

In the meantime, I'm psyching myself up to start a new central park hoodie. I looked back at Ravelry and found that ARGH the one I made that is very very snug when I close it is a 40 (supposedly) so this one will probably be a 44. That SHOULD be 8 inches of ease normally, but I'm just hoping to get 4. Hmm maybe I should make the 48.

Oh, I was also asked how the girls liked their doll hats. They were received with glee, but then demands were made for coats. knitted coats. SIGH.

Winding and swatching

2011-01-10T16:30:00.000-05:00

Ten days into 2011 and I'm just getting around to writing. Bad me. Of course you'd think I'd have some huge finished project to show too. Sadly, despite having travelled 12 hours in the car over the holidays, I have nothing really to show. I ended up taking a pair of baby socks, and I do have those sort of finished but when I was showing them off I noticed one was a bit smaller than the other, so since I haven't finished off the toe, I'm going to unravel it a bit and make it match. So I don't want to photograph them until I have that fixed.

You think I might even have a resolution, but sadly no on that either. I thought about making a list of things I'd like to knit in 2011, but that seemed a little too much like work, where I make goals and objectives all the time.

So far though 2011 has been about getting ready to knit.

I received from my mother in law, who sticks to the lists people give her, enough Lark in the color Leek to make a sweater. I think that another central Park Hoodie is in my future. So right now I'm swatching. I actually felted my first swatch because I didn't realize that even my washer on delicate would be too rough. So the second swatch got hand washed, we'll see--unwashed I get gauge pretty easily.

I also bought a new pair of shoes to replace my beloved loafers that I usually wear to work with my hand knit socks. These shoes are more a mary jane style and show off way more sock than my loafers did, which has me wanting more socks. Only not plain socks. I want socks with interest! Socks with a detail on the foot! I'm thinking Wanida from the book Sock innovations And I have just the yarn. Sadly though it is still in a skein and so needs to be wound and swatched.

So that's 2011 so far for me, winding and swatching.

Holiday knitting

2010-12-23T16:18:00.001-05:00

I have given away all the necklaces. Here are the ones I made for my co-workers.

They seemed to like them. I also gave the teachers theirs and they seem to have been appreciated. Then I went and bought some new beads.

But, beaded crochet isn't a good "travel" project. I put travel in quotes because travel projects are good if you are traveling a long way or just down the street for holiday stuff. I always think it is good to have a small easily memorizable patterned thing when visiting with people. And the week after christmas is going to be big on this knit and chat type project, so I was trying to finish up a few things so I could get well and easily started on my "talking" or "traveling" or whatever you would call it knitting.

So I finished my leftover socks. I didn't know if I would have enough yarn. I didn't but was only 4 rounds away, so I just made the second sock a little shorter. (Would have stunk to have run out of yarn in the middle of the post turkey talk!)

This way I can wear them over the holidays.

I also want to finish my shawl before Christmas--and get something new started, for my talking knitting. It has about 4 maybe 5 more rows left.

Instead of baking this year, I seem to be doing all this knitting. It is kind of too bad because I have a few things I love to make at Christmas, and this year I skipped them to make socks. Ah well, probably better for my waistline to be making socks than spiced pecans.

back to knitting

2010-12-16T17:00:00.000-05:00

It isn't all beaded crochet around here. Although I did see a website for bead weaving and that looked cool, and so I don't think my beading days are over.

But I need to get back to my knitting.

I am having a problem with a pair of socks. see I decided to make a pair of short socks from some yarn I dyed last year... well leftover yarn. And as you might imagine, I don't have quite enough. So, of course being hand dyed yarn there is NOTHING that I can do about it

Wellt he only thing I can do about it is to use a different yarn to finish the second sock. So that should be entertaining. I just need to decide what I have that will work.

In the meantime, I finally decided what to do with some yarn my MIL brought me from Ireland

I don't have a tag, so I don't know the brand or the color-way or anything really. I know it is wool, has an interesting texture, and is a little difficult to work with. I decided to just make a garter stitch shawl using an old dishcloth pattern. You cast on 3, knit 1 yo knit to the end, every row until it gets big enough, then I can't remember the decreases to make it a dishcloth. Instead I'll just bind off when it gets big enough.

I don't know if it will work, but it has been fun.

twelve

2010-12-08T14:32:00.000-05:00

I have made 12 beaded crochet necklaces. That's 36 strands and roughly 1000 beads. I only really started feeling a slowdown around eleven and I think that's because my bead supply is dwindling. I'm entirely out of white beads, running low on purple and blue and clear but have a ton more green and black. I got the green and black at Joann's and I think if I do this again (who am I kidding when I do this again) I'll get the beads there because for $4 I got a ton.

What am I doing with all these necklaces? Well, I'm giving them ALL away. So far I've given away two. One to my best friend and one to my hair um artist her card says. Of course I started with one for the teacher and one for the teacher's aide. (that's 4 in case you lost count) I made one for each of my daughters (6) and one for each of the six people in my department (12).

Initially, number 12 was going to be for me. I made it the day my book club was going out for Christmas dinner and wore it. Then I started on number 13 and realized that with the limited beads I have left that it looks very much like one I already made. So, I decided to be THAT person and give away the one I wore. I also hope I'm right in the number of people in my department, I feel like I'm missing someone. So. I'll be boxing those up early so I can have time to think.

Then I'll have to think about what to make for myself.

beads

2010-11-22T12:38:00.000-05:00

I think I'm addicted. Addicted to beaded crochet of all things.

It started out as a neat idea to give the teachers, something non scarf, not because I have any objection to scarves really, but more because I'm not really all that inspired at the moment by scarves--wait a month I'll be cranking out scarves like mad. and then it sort of got out of control.

First there were the swatches, and then:

And then:

Seriously, I had two teacher gifts in less than a week. Turns out I can knock out 3 strings of a necklace in about 90 minutes. So my teacher gifts were done, but I couldn't stop.

I have two different types of metallic threads, but I like the dandyline in the top pictures the best.

I've already been to the craft stores twice since this project started, and I'm sure I'll be back for more dandyline. And gold clasps. And maybe just more clasps because I was teh dumb and bought 4. I mean really, what was I thinking? That I'd be able to stop with 4?

I think it might be the beads

gifts

2010-11-17T12:52:00.000-05:00

Usually about this time of year I start to get all excited about Christmas knitting. The last few years I have knit scarves for my girls' teachers. ANd then last year I made a pair of socks for my MIL. At the end of the Christmas season I wished I had whipped up a few scarves for my co-workers. This year I was determined to start earlier and do that very thing. Um yeah. Let's just say this year, I don't really feel the need to knit everyone I work with a scarf. It isn't that I don't like them, I just don't want to spend the money. Ok and I've been feeling tired lately at the end of the day and the thought of such pressurized knitting fills me with dread.

But that's not to say I won't be knitting some gifts! In fact I've already started (and finished) a few. LAst year my girls got American girl dolls for Christmas, and while they don't "play" with them exactly, they do like dressing them up. So this year after browsing the catalog--and realizing that the scarf trend that is so popular with adults is trickling down to the dolls, I decided the dolls needed scarves. And hats:

All this is cascade fixation done one size 4 or 5 needles. Fours I think.
I did measure the heads and worked up enough stitches to go around based on gauge, which was about 52.

The one doll is sporting a complicated updo (as seen in a doll magazine--it had directions so of course we had to do it...) and the hat doesn't fit over her head. It will fit when her hair is down though.

I have no idea this year if the girls' teacher is a scarf appreciator. Last year I figured if the teacher wasn't, she had a teenage daughter who might be. This year, there are no teenage daughters. Also complicating this year is that the aide in their classroom (who is there to help one boy but she really does more) was also the aide in their kindergarten classroom. So I already made her a scarf. And even though she has a new coat this year, I know she knits--AND I gave her the pattern for her scarf (she asked). So I figured a scarf wouldn't quite do.

Enter a quick look around ravelry and Lo and behold, I discovered you can crochet beaded necklaces. I'm following the directions here. I'm really happy so far:

I think I need more and bigger beads though. Who knows, maybe I'll end up making necklaces for my co-workers too.

the fall

2010-11-10T14:43:00.005-05:00

In the middle of the Halloween costume craziness, my daughters decided they wanted to be brownies. After attending the first meeting and being handed the uniform order forms I has a small gasp of sticker shock. The whole kit for vest/patches etc retails around $50. Take that times 2 and well... let's just say I had a moment of quiet contemplation.

I went home, and after researching it out--the patches totaled $15 each, the vest was $16 and the rest was made up of books, I decided there must be a cheaper way. I looked on ebay, I asked around, and in the end, I scanned a bunch of pattern books. Because really--$16 for a brown vest? The downfall of me, was when I said--how hard can this be? In the end, I found that Mccall's pattern M6229 has a view that is roughly the same shape. I got the pattern for $1 on sale at Joanne's and then went looking for fabric. I found some for $6 a yard, and bought 3 yards. I also bought a bunch of bias tape, but in the end, I didn't use it. So, for $17 I was ready to make 2 vests.

Well, this is about the time I realized that the vest pattern was only partially lined, and I was thinking fully lined (although for the record, official brownie vests are not lined at all). So I thought I'd just make mine fully lined, I've done a vest like that before, and thought I remembered how it should go. So I cut out the 2 pattern pieces 4 times and set to work.

The first vest, went together really nice until I sewed the lining to the outside. Let's just say that the way *I* had it it would have no armholes. I could not for the life of me figure out how I had done this before. Looking at the vest I had made, I could not figure out how to do it. After a day of fretting and ripping, I finally thought to look to see if I had kept the pattern. I had and after looking at the instructions, it was very clear what I had done wrong.

The second vest took only an hour to put totally together.

But the vests also took some handsewing--on the sides, which was how they got turned inside out. And again, I had to remember how to sew slightly invisibly those seams together.
So, ok it isn't much of a fall, but you would think that two vests could not take 3 days to sew. And then the patches! The patches are ironed on, but they need to be sewed down still. And I didn't foresee that my homemade vests would need some sort of label so that girls could tell them apart.

The official vest:

My versions:

pride goeth before the dfall

2010-11-07T11:09:00.001-05:00

You know the saying, Pride goeth before the fall? This here, this is the pride:

I don't know if I've ever been more proud of my sewing skills. Not only did I manage to pull off a frog costume, I managed to shorten it in a fairly non-distracting way. I think you can see where I had to make cuts, but it doesn't distract from the overall look. And then! And then I made a dress. A real dress that actually fits and doesn't look costumey (like ariel as a bride and Glenda). Also in those last two, I can really see all my mistakes. Honestly, I pull it off, but I can see saggy hems and threads hanging and puckered sleeves. In this year's colonial girl--I don't see ANY of that. Of course if I was to do it over, I'd probably have surged the hem first, because that is where it is fraying. Or maybe an overlock stitch. But anyway, it looks like well, a real dress, not just something someone whipped up for Halloween.

You might think that the "fall" I allude to in the first line has something to do with a school halloween party and black frosted cupcakes (actually something like that happened to Glenda), but no! Actually aside from a minor punch mishap which I think if I washed the colonial girl dress, would probably come out, they remained unscathed. The pride... well let's just say I got a little too proud of my sewing skills and details will follow.

How to turn a bear into a frog

2010-10-30T16:08:00.001-04:00

* First look to make sure you can't find a frog pattern. I couldn't but perhaps you have resources I do not (or a smaller child). Second, look for something close to a frog, perhaps a bear:

* Decide that a bear is really a brown frog and you can do this. The buy the fleece the pattern calls for in green, buy the accent color as yellow. Get a tiny bit extra because it is on sale and you have no idea how you are going to make the head look froglike.

* Sew up the costume, omitting details like the bow around the neck. Frogs do not wear bows.

* Listen to your children when they say, just make it like ears only make the front look like an eye, you know with white fabric with some black sewn on.

* Find some white fleece leftover from the time you turned a bear into a panda (bears are very versatile)

* Borrow two black buttons from a child who seemingly has a bigger button collection than you.

* Do some hand sewing instead of knitting for two nights.

* Hear Tim Gunn in your head announce, "Make it work!"

* Adapt the mitten pattern to have a more fin-like look.

* Sit back and enjoy how froglike it looks.

Nine days

2010-10-20T16:53:00.000-04:00

With nine days left and counting, dare I say I'm in good shape for Halloween.

I have the "clone" (colonial) girl dress completed and it is absolutely lovely. I need to still work on the shawl and mobcap, which are made out of a purchased lace panel.

I have the frog jumpsuit completed, and a good idea how the frog eyes are going to go. I have a little bit of handsewing on that, that I'll work on tonight instead of knitting. I do need to figure out the flippers and as my daughter says, buy the facepaint.

So of course I'm spending a ton of time in the sewing room and I'm thinking projects. For some reason I have a big starteritis going on the sewing projects. Not so much on knitting. Here's what I think I might be sewing soon:
A fleece jacket for me. I made one a few years ago (ok 8 years ago) and I love it but it is getting pilly. So when I bought the frog fleece and noticed fleece was 1/2 price, I bought a pretty blue for me.

PJ pants for me. I love making these, I need a new pair to replace one and MIL bought me some cute flannel. The big drawback is that I need to thread the serger first.

Brownie vests for the girls. I found a Mccall's pattern that is the right shape, if I can find some appropriate brown fabric, I'll be making rather than purchasing brownie vests. Also Mccall's patterns are $.99 at my Joann's this week. And seriously, if I can keep it under $20 I'll be saving money ($31 is what buying 2 will cost me). Of course I have to find brown fabric--I'm guessing 2.5 yards should do the trick. So even if I have to pay $8.50 a yard, I should still be good.

I wish I had such plans for knitting. I want to knit the teacher a nice scarf, but at our house, when I bring up patterns, everyone wants the pencil scarf.

Maybe in nine days I'll be able to concentrate on my knitting again. Nine more days.

State of the costumes

2010-10-16T14:12:00.001-04:00

I had a very real moment of panic when I looked at the calendar for something at work this week. Oh my, there is only two weeks left to get the Halloween costumes done. I still had sleeves and collars and oh my.
So this week, I set some goals, I only had two free afternoons, but I wanted to make the most of it. Collars, facings, and sleeves for the colonial girl (or "clone girl" as she puts it). I actually set that all for Wednesday afternoon, but only ended up getting the collars done.

I hate collar facings. I think I do them wrong or something but they never lay the way they should, they are my least favorite thing to do in any costume. Boy, am I glad they are done.

I had some issues with the colonial girl sleeves as they have two pieces that have to be set in. And there was an error in the pattern directions because it told me to match up the "R1s" and there was nothing like that on the pattern. I did the best I could matching seams and notches, but they look backwards to me. So much so, I ripped out the first one and re-did it, but they still look a little backwards. I guess we'll have to wait for the fitting.

There is a moment in every episode of Project Runway where Tim Gunn comes in and says "Designers, I'm sending in your models for a fitting" and that's when sometimes things get crazy. My goal is that later tonight, I'll be doing fittings. I may find myself a little crazy as I deal with two very excited seven year olds dancing as I'm trying to figure out exactly where the frog should get hemmed and my big worry--making sure the colonial girl dress fits. Simplicty patterns are so whack that while the Frog was too big, I'm concerned that the colonial dress with be too small (and yes I did take measurements, and by those, she needs a size 8 everywhere BUT the waist where I am either measuring wrong, or somehow my stick figure daughter with the rib bones you can see, needs a size 14 waist).

Since I'm talking fittings, you might realize that I've lost a bit of panic, and I have... as long as everything fits, I should be in decent shape, which is good because this promises to be a busy week.

halloween!

2010-10-06T11:13:00.001-04:00

I've been meaning to write for a while, but this time of year is really busy and October 1st I had this panic of thinking that Halloween was just at the end of this month and my progress on the costumes has been abysmal. Although I'm not sure getting distracted by thinking the kitchen floor needs mopping every time I got to cut out pattern pieces helps much.

I did finish the socks though--which means that before they were in school a month, I had made each of them a new pair of socks.

I did a toe up pattern, just a plain vanilla sock and made them pretty short. I used only one skein of Lorna's laces Shepherd sock and probably could have gone another inch or two longer. Of course finishing the socks meant that I had no travel knitting during a week when I needed about 4 hours of travel knitting, so I grabbed what was leftover from my hand dyed sock yarn and started some toe up socks for me. I have no idea if I'll get an actual PAIR of socks out of what I have left, but I'm pretty sure I'm ok with that, as it is helping me focus on the scarf or shawl I think I'd like to make out of my Ireland yarn.

And I'm really trying hard not to panic at the thought that Christmas knitting should start soon. I don't know the 2nd grade teacher as well as I'd like, and this year there is an aide int he classroom and she's the same aide I knit a scarf for when the ladies were in kindergarten.
The scarf I knit for the aide

Anyway, back to Halloween, because deep breathing and thinking of one thing at a time helps. I did get the frog costume cut out (double layer fleece UGH) and mostly sewn together before I realized that the size I made was WAY too big. So big it nearly fit me. So the frog costume will have one more seam in it an was called for because I decided the only way to make a fleece jumpsuit short enough (the crotch was at her knees!) was to take out nearly 4 inches in the middle. For all that fuss though, fleece jumpsuit costumes must be the absolute easiest things to sew as fleece doesn't really fray and jumpsuits have only one real tricky part--the zippers.

Today's task is to finish cutting out the colonial girl's dress. Made tricky by 1) wanting to get it right and 2)my wrist hurting again. The wrist problem though has been diagnosed as tendonitis and is being treated. It doesn't interfere with the knitting, but the cutting motion is really hard on it, so I have been cutting in shifts so I don't hurt it again.

So in summary: panic, panic, socks, decisions to be made and ouch.

Halloween

2010-09-24T14:22:00.000-04:00

It took me a week, but I think I have all the materials to get started on this year's halloween costumes. Well most of it anyway. I could not believe how difficult it was to find a plain pink calico or in the words of the "client" "white with dark and light pink flowers and green stems." One of these years I'll actually achieve my goal of buying everything for both costumes at $20 per kids, but not this year thanks to the pink calico finally found at a local quilting store for $9.50 a yard instead of Joann's $2.99 per yard. Thankfully halloween is only once a year.

Along the way I bought fabric to make myself a fleece jacket and almost bought flannel to make jammies for me. As if I have the time for all that nonsense. Nope, all my sewing time for the next 5-6 weeks is focused on Halloween. The class party is Friday the 29th which cuts off two days of sewing!

I had thought this year also that perhaps I could have a costume--and had the perfect idea... Velma from Scooby Doo. I have the orange sweater and the hair and glasses but then I'd need a red pleated skirt and orange knee high socks. The crazy part of my brain whispered that I could sew the skirt and get this... dye and knit the socks.

Are you laughing yet?

As odd as it sounds after running to three stores to look for pink calico I started to think the red pleated skirt might be the issue rather than say knitting a pair of knee high socks.

Did someone mention socks? I finished one.

Lorna's Laces Mardi Gras done toe-up and short because I'm trying to get two kids socks out of one skein--somehow her feet have grown since I last made her socks. Second sock is underway. Thankfully my sewing and knitting times are so different in nature that this won't interfere.

SOCKS

2010-09-10T13:37:00.001-04:00

In my haste to tell you all that I had entered the exciting world of crochet I had neglected to tell you about the socks!

I finished the first pair of my back to school socks for the ladies. They both had picked out some yarn at Threadbear and I can't tell you why I started with this pair, but I did. The next are on the needles now, but for some reason I'm having a big mental block on them--I've ripped back so many times that I'm nearly ready to rip all the way back and just start fresh. And you know what--they aren't even HARD socks.

That's some Lorna's laces in Mardi Gras--a colorway I'm sure I've seen at other shops although I was told (at purchase it wasn't a deal breaker for me) that this was exclusive to the shop I was in. I'm just hoping I have enough--their feet have grown a bunch since I last made them socks.

And coming soon (well next month anyway):

Oh yeah, life is good.

insert obligatory hooking joke here

2010-09-08T14:14:00.001-04:00

I have a very mixed history with crochet. Oh sure I can knit, and I can quilt and I can even do some basic weaving and dyeing, but I think I might have this mental block when it comes to crochet.

My mom crochets and has ever since I could remember. She mostly makes afghans which I once at the tender age of 3 or 4 thought were going to turn into dogs, after meeting an afghan hound. I don't know what my small self would have thought had I known a whole country existed... but I digress.

I have several afghans (the blanks not the people or hounds) that she's made for me (and for my girls). Once I tried to knit one, and boy howdy that's not something I'll rush to do again any time soon. And frankly, I have enough so at this point learning to crochet so I can make afghans is kind of pointless. Still, I love the 1970 style granny square hats and vests (although I would probably never wear a vest) and would love to make some.

My mom did try to teach me to crochet once, but it was very short lived as I had the attention span of an ant. I tried to teach myself once, about 18 years ago when my husband's roommate's wife was pregnant, and gave up on it shortly after the child turned 2--and gave everything away. And I taught myself to chain and single crochet for knitting projects.

This time though I'm determined to master this... in part because I thought it might be a good thing to teach my girls. So when my mom announced her annual visit--I said--perhaps you could teach me to crochet. She proceeded to teach both of my girls to chain and single crochet (sort of). She also helped me clarify why it is so hard for me to get this.

First, crochet is not knitting and I was expecting that I would be as good at crochet as I am at knitting. By this I don't mean that I am an expert knitter (I'm not) but I mean I can read a knitting pattern, know what's going on and follow it pretty well. I can look at my knitting and tell where I am. I can look at my knitting and see the mistakes AND how to fix them. I can do none of that (hopefully yet) with crochet.

First, the directions still don't make a lot of sense to me and second, I'm clueless when it comes to looking at something someone has crocheted and knowing what they did (I can do this with knitting pretty much). But my mom left me with two how to crochet books (one for kids and one for clueless adults like me) and the girls and I are working through them. My girls though, ever the optimists want to make hats and blankets for charity or afghans. Me, I have given up on the idea of a granny square hat anytime soon, and am focusing in on doll blankets as let's say practice swatches.

I guess it is like anything--a lot of bad swatches need to come out before you can start producing good. I wince at the first attempts I made at quilts, and I think I pitched my first knitted swatch (although I still have the project I made with my grandma--before I learned to cast on). So it is with this knowledge that I show you my efforts on single crochet

http://www.flickr.com/photos/52177363@N00/4971077987/

I think there are a lot of doll blankets in my future.

why I love socks

2010-08-29T10:44:00.000-04:00

I had been working hard on my shrug. It does seem to go very very slow for some reason. But I felt like I was starting to make some progress:

But a closer look reveals some ripping in my future:

So I started a sock:

Since taking this picture, I finished this sock and started sock number 2. This is for my daughter that loves pink. I have yarn for socks for my daughter that loves purple.

state of the jam

2010-08-12T09:22:00.002-04:00

I've made my last batch of jam for the summer. And in the interests of memory here is the listing.

3 batches of strawberry--with berries prepped by my husband. Very easy, very fun. Made a facebook offer to make jam for others, and so made a batch in exchange for sock yarn.

1 batch of sour cherry. Sour cherries are a pain in the side to prep. All those pits! But not only did I do a batch of jam, I froze two small batches of cherries for 2 small batches of cherry crisp.

2 batches of blueberries. Blueberries are about the easiest to prep for jam, as they have no tops to cut off or pits to cut out. So essentially I throw them in the bowl and mash away. Sadly, I don't care for blueberries (don't say it too loudly or I think they will take away my Michigan Drivers license). I don't mind them if they are frozen, but let's just say the jam was not my idea. Other people in this house got a taste for them. I made the second batch to give away (and I have 4 of those left!). I'd offer them here, but freezer jam really doesn't mail well.

1 batch of peach. I love peaches. I could eat (and have) peaches every single day. I hate the skins (fur--yuck) but as I say here: I'm a grown-up and know how to use a knife. These are about the hardest to prepare for jam--you have to peel pit and chop. But yesterday I did the 6 containers that now make up my peach jam stash. What happens to me is that I buy a large quantity of peaches because I love them, then they all get ripe at the same time and I get overwhelmed because not even I can eat 6 peaches in one day. So one year every time the peaches started to get overripe I'd make peach jam. I think I made three batches. That was the year I gave everyone at playgroup peach jam--someone might still have one of my tupperware containers (for the record, tupperware is the only container I'd want back). Now, I have a different strategy--I freeze them for peach crisp. This year I have a container going and I chop one or two that are just ripe but can't be eaten into the container--when it is full, I'll stash it in the downstairs freezer. I'll probably make a fresh one too before peach season is over.

no, I am not done yet.

2010-08-06T13:58:00.001-04:00

One of the things I think is funny about knitting in public, which is what I've been doing lately with this purple shrug, is the comments you get.

I've been asked:
If I was done yet. (no)
How do you do that (by an 8 year old)
What is it going to be (a shrug, followed by a short explanation)
How long does it take you on average? (have no idea--depends)

And no, I'm still working on the back. I had an issue in which I worked on it in the car, and about half-way through the trip I realized the lace wasn't coming out right and ripping was needed. I didn't want to rip back in the car, so ended up making the return drive with no knitting (boo hiss) and the next night ripping out 12 rows. But on the plus side, I made a side trip to a yarn store that everyone around here raves about and bought some new yarn. For some reason my graph isn't helping me a bunch, so almost every row I have to stop and think about how to get started--then it is off and running.

But I only have about an inch left on the back.

Maybe I should start a sock.

I love ravelry shrug

2010-07-29T18:47:00.000-04:00

I must confess that when I was a new knitter, nothing scared me. In fact, I think I mentioned I knit some sweaters for my then toddlers right after having mastered dishcloths. But why not? sweaters are basically big rectangles and triangles. While my results weren't perfect I learned some things that stick with me today.

And yet, lately I find myself afraid to take chances on things that I *really* want to make. I'm finding I'm afraid. So that's the real reason I don't have a dollar and a half cardigan. It is also the reason that I don't yet have a shrug to go with my purple, green and black dress. Ok, I have one that I whipped off, but I wanted a lacy purple one.

So, I picked out a pattern that I liked, which is more jacket than shrug from Ce Ce knits and hiked off to my yarn store, with the dress in hand to find DK weight yarn in this specific purple.

I love purple, but purples are hard to match.

The yarn store had two choices: Tahki Charles cotton classic and Debbie Bliss Baby cashmerino. There wasn't enough of either at the store, but she thought she had enough Debbie Bliss at the other store. I like cotton classic, I made a sweater in it once, and as cotton goes it is pretty good, but I didn't want to have to special order it (because of the weight! ha I bought this in MAY). So the owner brought down the Debbie bliss from her other location, and 3 days later I had the yarn.

Now, Debbie Bliss Baby cashmerino is not DK weight. But I thought... oh heck I do not know what I thought, I've seen too much Tim Gunn proclaiming Make it work! that I thought I could... well make it work.

After 3 swatches it was clear that either I'd need to do some major math, or find a new pattern. And I tried the math and learned that "just making a bigger size" was only going to work if I made one size larger than the largest size listed on that pattern and that seemed to me just asking for trouble.

So off to Ravelry I went searching for a new pattern. And I found one. Only is isn't a shrug, it is a whole sweater called Henley perfected. It was in the Interweave knits magazine a while ago and I had the issue. I guess I never thought of it as anything else until I saw all the variations people had done on it in ravelry. I saw variants with all lace, no lace, short sleeves, all lace sleeves and then it hit me, I could do a short sleeve short sweater variant. In other words, a lacy jacket like coverup that I'd call a shrug.

But of course there has to be adjustments made to pull this off. The first was that the directions for the hem were just whack. Basically it had you sew the hem in. Which is funny because Interweave knits online shows a better way. Then my hem rolled so I pulled out out and made it longer.

Actually that wasn't the first--First I had to figure out how many to cast on because the stitch count changes several times for shaping. Combine that with deciding how long to make it, and you see why I have only part of the back done.

Now I am busy doing the decreases for the sleeves into the back lace pattern--which by the way is not something I do well naturally. I am reasonably good at reading my knitting which is what you pretty much have to do at this point. But since I like to knit while I watch tv, I need to write it all out. So my knitting time today has been taken up by graphing out the lace repeats and blocking out the decreases. A tedious task, but it should make the lace come out right.

No pictures, but perhaps when I have a bit more to show.

Updates

2010-07-22T20:35:00.000-04:00

I have some longer stuff to write, but am in the middle of a bunch of other projects and need to sit down and focus to really get this right. SO instead here are some quick updates.

First a picture of the completed jam socks--made from yarn that I swapped for making some strawberry jam. I have swedish runner legs...

Second, all the tests have come back negative on my wrist (so it is not broken, or sprained and all my blood work came back normal, so probably not RA) and I have figured out some stuff. First aleve makes it feel better. My wrist brace does not. Also, knitting does not seem to effect it either way. However biking makes it worse (as does housework but I might be making that up). So right now the plan is take aleve and hope it goes away in 4 weeks.

Third, a while back I was thinking about making a skirt for summer and then I got frustrated at the sizing and the pattern. Then my Mother-in -law brought back this cute already elasticized for sundress fabric to make sundresses for my girls and I thought--wow that would make a really cute skirt. $8 and a few hours later I had:

I didn't make pockets because I was lazy. But I wore the skirt all day and feel very very flirty and summery, which was the goal to begin with.

More later.

my aching wrist

2010-07-12T21:12:00.000-04:00

finished my socks, and while I don't have a picture of them, trust me, they are fun fun fun. And in September when the weather cools and I feel like wearing ANY socks again, I'll have to model them.
I;ve started in on my next project, which is a shrug that I've modeled on a sweater from Interweave knits. Details later mainly because I don't have them at hand--except to know that I'm using Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino and US size 3 needles mainly because of the color the baby cashmerino came in--it is a dead ringer for the purple in my dress.

I'm excited about it, and working through the technical issues I'm encountering--like for example, the original pattern calls for a hemmed edge, which I've never done, but I couldn't figure it out from the instructions, so I had to do it differently following instructions from my very handy Knitter's book of Finishing techniques. And so far so good--I'm only on step 4 of 5 steps. What's bothering me, quite literally is my wrist.

A few years ago, I had this weird thing that when I was knitting (or more when I was sewing up) my pinkie and ring finger would go numb. After many tests later, it was determined that I "wrenched" my elbow picking up one of my "babies" who were 3 or 4 and weighed in the neighborhood of 35-40 pounds. After I stopped lifting them and slept for 6 months with a hand brace on, I gradually got better. This is different.

It started a few weeks ago, by feeling that I'd slept wrong on my hand an that my wrist needed to pop. Like you'd pop your knuckles. Except it won't. Steadily it has gotten worse. Nothing seems to make it better--I've even had days when (gasp) I haven't knitted anything. In fact on vacation, I went days without knitting and all the while that pain was still there. I should also note that it does not hurt to knit, but it does to scrub sinks. It does not hurt to sew up, although writing anything longer than my name is painful. Yoga has been excruciating at times. Mornings are worse than evenings. The hand brace does not seem to make a difference one way or another. And tomorrow, I'll be having it checked out. I'm hoping that it doesn't take weeks of (painful) tests to decide that I'm doing something stupid like lifting a 35 pound child regularly and calling her a baby (and scaring the doctor who wanted to know how old my "baby" was). I'm also hoping that I don't get the kibosh on knitting.

vacation!

2010-07-04T11:07:00.000-04:00

We went on vacation! We drove a grand total of 22 hours and so of course I needed some car knitting. I know Elizabeth Zimmerman recommends lace knitting for summer because it is light and portable for the car. Obviously Mrs. Zimmerman did not fulfill the same car role as I do (book on cd changer, fight referee, video set-up artist, navigator, and toll change counter). I usually make socks in the car because they really are small tuck anywhere projects. I've done patterned socks in the past, but I've also lost row counters in the car, only to find them months later. This time, fate was on my side. I had no projects on the needles and none of the fancy patterns for socks were coming out to my liking.

I was also in the midst of jam making. I love strawberry freezer jam (well and peach and cherry too) and we were afraid given the warm spring we've had here that if I didn't get the jam done before we left we'd miss strawberry season. Turned out to be a good thing too. I made my three batches of jam and still had enthusiasm left over, so I posted on facebook that I loved making jam so much IU'd probably make some for you. And Cinnamonamon took me up on it. In exchange for the strawberries, sugar, containers and sock yarn, I made her a lovely batch of Strawberry jam. And suddenly I had sock yarn that I was excited about. Because you know--i don't have enough sock yarn of my own? Of course, but mine is boring. behold:

Just a plain toe up pattern, started a few nights before we left just to make sure I was happy with the tension/fabric combo. After we'd crossed our 4th state line I had the idea to take the sock's picture with the state signs so you could see my progress. Sadly, I didn't. But I did finish the first sock on the road and started the second. I had the heel all turned by the time we pulled into the driveway. I probably could have had more but the stars had all aligned. Good movie for the kids, familiar navigation and no tolls for the driver and so I whipped up some lace! Naw just kidding, I had a good book and I read.

We also got home in time to hit the very very short sour cherry season. So The day after I got home, I tackled 7 loads of laundry and 2 quarts of sour cherries. I ended up with a batch of jam, 2 freezer containers of pitted cherries for (small--read serves 2) crisps and a chocolate cherry crisp that was divine! We also ate 2 quarts of sweet cherries, which have a slightly longer season. Although my favorite farm at farmer's market is done with all cherries, so the ones we have this week are kinda eh.

I'm feeling better about knitting and have an idea for a new project. I need to work out the details sometime when I am awake and yet not busy--but given that we've entered the great toy purge season as well as fresh produce that needs to be dealt with regularly season, usually it is all I can do to knit a few rounds of socks before falling asleep. It is lace though.....

I'm feeellllting.

2010-06-17T20:34:00.001-04:00

There is just something magical about felting. About how you can take a pile like this:

Throw it in the washer. And have it come out like this:

The purse is a simple cast on however many stitches--in this case 64, but it is a little wide and short--knit in the round until you are almost out of yarn and bind off and sew together--or you can get fancy and three needle bind off. The cord is just 3 stitch icord.

The flowers were perhaps my favorites--the sea anemones are cute, but the flowers... Well the purple is cascade 220 and the pink are Ultra Alpaca and I think the ultra alpaca with the pebbly way it felts up just looks almost like I bought them at a craft store.

We don't know what were going to do with them yet, but I have this terrible urge to knit more.

felting (and jam notes)

2010-06-13T10:56:00.000-04:00

Last summer I whipped up a few things out of a skein of Paton's SWS.

But I didn't felt them because it seemed like a waste to felt so little. So I set them aside.

In my latest eh what to knit phase I had a chance to knit at a playground while my kids ran around with gobs of other first graders and I did not have a sock started. In fact I had nothing started, so I grabbed a skein of Noro Kureyon and some needles. In less than a week I had:

Also not felted because after I finished that, I realized I still had some scraps of purple wool (cascade 220, I think and only realized because I used some to finish the strap) that I could maybe make another flower from. But I couldn't remember where I got this pattern... and I found another felted flower pattern (from 101 one skein wonders which is where I thought the sea urchins had come from.) and started one in purple. THEN I realized I needed one in pink and realized that I happen to have some leftover ultra alpaca in pink. SO I think it will be a while before I start felting.

On another note, I'd like to say that this blog has saved me! Last year I noted that I had made 3 batches of Strawberry jam (and one peach and 1 sour cherry). Well the jam came out perfectly in terms of amounts and this year Strawberry season is here a few weeks early. So after making 2 batches of jam which came out to this much:

I wondered--how much had I made last year because I have 2 containers left and that's about perfect (I like to give away jam too to pet sitters, teachers, etc). I looked in the archives and lo and behold last July I mentioned I had made three batches. So future self--I'll be making batch #3 of Strawberry sometime this afternoon.

socks socks socks

2010-06-08T18:27:00.000-04:00

I finally finished a pair of striped socks.

I love this yarn, which is Felici by Knit picks, and the pattern which is a plain jane toe up sock pattern I found in an issue of Interweave knits.

However, I'm a little bummed on socks right now. But I do have quite a bit of opportunity to knit in places where I need to be focused on something OTHER than the pattern. So I started a felted purse in a very simple, knit this puppy in the round until you are almost out of yarn, sew it up and add an i-cord strap and felt that puppy. Use a Noro yarn and whoo whee you've got a sweet small purse.

But, I think I'm going to be using my concentrate on the knitting and pattern time to work on this shrug from CECE knits. Short sleeve version in a yarn that is the same purple as in my dress. I know because I brought my dress to the yarn store. I'm just not sure how it will work because the yarn I bought (Debbie Bliss Baby cashmerino) is a bit thinner than the DK yarn called for. But that is what the swatch is for, I guess.

blah

2010-05-28T20:43:00.001-04:00

I'm feeling like I'm in a knitting ... well rut isn't the right word. I want to knit something, but all that I have yarn for is socks... well and a sweater or two. So I knit a sock:

The yarn is Felici from Knit picks. The pattern is a basic toe up from interweave knits. The second one is on the needles now, but it suddenly got hot here in the North and so now if I wear socks it looks more like this:

Which honestly isn't making me wanting to crank out the socks. I have some laceweight yarn and Elizabeth Zimmerman claims shawls are the perfect summer knit. I love lace, but I'm not sure I'm a shawl wearer. Which is also making me less likely to want to knit a shawl.

I did however finish the Retro Redux shrug from Lace style:

And I really like it--especially with my new dress.

Right now the only thing I want to knit is another shrug or lace jacket or something in the purple of the dress. I have no yarn in that purple right now, and no way to get any until late next week. Plus I don't exactly have a pattern picked out. I'm kinda in a rotten mood about it too. I know I'd feel better if I knit, but I don't feel like knitting (well except for that imaginary perfect purple shrug-like thing). Kind of a catch-22.
I'm sure I'll snap out of it, just as I'm sure I'll be knitting socks all summer long.

All my mistakes will become masterpieces

2010-05-21T21:56:00.001-04:00

When I started this blog, I titled it Disasters with yarn, because I felt like I was having a streak of knitting disasters. But then I got wimpy and didn't actually write in it until I was past those "disasters". In actuality, they were mistakes and I don't mind mistakes as long as I learn from them. They play a song in my yoga class that has the refrain--All my mistakes have become masterpieces.

I'm not sure if mine have, but I have learned something from most of them, and this one is no exception. You see I had this sweater. I didn't knit it but I really liked it.

It is a nursing sweater so it has a flap in front that buttoned down and holes on the inside. I liked the color, I liked the yarn, and so I wore it even after I didn't need it for nursing Until at least it developed an "extra" hole:

Then a few months ago, I found it when I was cleaning my sewing room--I had put it down there thinking I could somehow repair it. instead I got this really bright idea, why not take it apart and make something else out of it. Something lacy and summery. And so I did--I took off a sleeve and that's when I learned something very very important.

When garments are constructed in factories, they are often surged, by which A tiny bit of material is sliced off and the edges are sewn together all nice and neat--look at any seam in any t-shirt you have and you'll see what this looks like. I even have a serger and I love it. However, when you cut the edge off a piece of knitting.....

So, yes every time I unravelled a row I had a row sized piece of yarn--and not great yarn at that--very loose splitty yarn. So now I think it might be time for plan b. I have no idea what plan B is though. I did learn though that if I ever go "goodwilling" for sweaters to tear apart to look to make sure they aren't serged together.

On the brighter note, I kind of had a small leap out of my knitting blahs and finished a shrug, which is proving impossible to photograph by myself, so I'll have to wait until I can get some help. I also received a gift from my globe trotting mother in law of some yarn from Ireland.

She didn't save the label I think--and all I know is that it is over 50 grams of a mohair boucle--each skein is over 50 grams. I have been dreaming ever since about what I will make with it. I envision something Lacy and scarf-like. Then my mother in law called--she also had gotten me a woven scarf but couldn't find it until she unpacked all the way. It has the same colors and is just gorgeous. Again, impossible to photograph by myself, but I wore it to target today with my white t-shirt and hey librarian sweater because you know when it is nearly 70 you need sweaters and scarves (and raincoats which totally ruined my look).

knitting blahs

2010-04-29T16:02:00.000-04:00

I'm in a knitting rut. And a knitting slump

I think it started with the ill fated skirt. Then it moved onto a pair of socks that I was knitting that seem a bit snug. Then I thought why am I always knitting socks?

Well, I can save you many days of soul searching and tell you that I am always knitting socks for these reasons:
1) I wear socks almost every day
2) I have a ton of sock yarn
3) socks are portable
4) I have a ton of sock yarn
5) Socks are easy to do while watching TV
6) I have a ton of sock yarn.

You get the picture.
Seriously I spent 2 days trying to figure out something non-sock to knit. And I realized, I don't wear that many scarves or shawls, and I can't knit lace or anything complicated while I watch TV (looking at you dollar and a half cardigan). I don't have a lot of yarn for mid-sized projects--either socks or one-skein things or sweaters.

I have three balls of Muench Touch me, and toyed with a velvety scarf. And I could not for the life of me think about where I might wear such a thing in MAY. And of course I *could* save it for winter, but please, I want something I can appreciate NOW, not 5 months from now (oy, really 5 months from now I'll be wearing a scarf--yeah probably). I also have some leftover yarn--Briar rose Sonoma I think--that I have mittens and scarf from, but was thinking I had enough for some sort of hat-like thing. Again, 5 months.

Then it hit me. I have 2 skeins of Malbrigio silky wool In a beautiful purple. Surely I could get a small shrug out of it and certainly it would match the bits of purple flowers in the dress I bought to replace the ill-fated skirt. Well, yes and no. Yes, I probably had enough to make a small shrug. Like the small one in Lace Style which is not pictured in that link... But the purple wasn't quite the right purple. The purple bits in the dress are more red. And if I could tell that before I pulled the dress out of the bedroom (and into the sunny living room) then you know it was off. But I also noticed that there was some olive green in it too (and black and white--mostly black and white with a few purple flowers with olive leaves) and I have some olive yarn.

The yarn is Elle Aran gold and it is acrylic. I've knit with it before though and find it to be a lot sproingyier than most acrylics. In fact I made a whole sweater from it, which I actually still like and wear on a regular basis (wore it this week even). Of course it was a dead match for the olive in the dress, how could it not be. How could my expensive really want to create something lovely from it yarn be so far off as to be funny, and my cheap (purchased at a LYS closeout sale) acrylic match perfect? Well that's the way of things. Plus I had enough for the retro redux shrug pictured in the link above.

I was intrigued. I was interested. I swatched. I started dreaming of how I would look the NEXT time I wore that dress (which is in 10 days most likely). And I cast on, more excited about this project than I have been since I messed up the toe on that last sock and it the wall with my sewing.

Although, if anyone has a non scarf option for the lovely purple Malbrigio silky wool--I have 2 skeins which makes about 300 yards (274m) of a dk weight yarn, leave it in the comments. Oh heck, if you have a scarf pattern that I can wear in early fall--say September let me know about that too.

two things I learned.

2010-04-19T14:20:00.000-04:00

This is probably the space I should be telling you about the fabulous and cute skirt I made and then wore to a banquet and got a tremendous amount of compliments. And in fact I did wear something new to said banquet and got a ton of compliments.

First though I should say that as in knitting, in sewing I am learning all the time. In fact for this project I learned two very helpful things.

1) the grain lines on the pattern pieces should be straight and parallel to the selvedge edge. "otherwise your clothes will never hang right" so says the video I watched the clip out of. And as it turns out I always tried to get them straight but when I followed the video's helpful instructions: measure from the top of the arrow to the selvedge edge, pin, then measure the bottom of the arrow to the selvedge edge, I learned I can't eyeball straight. In fact my "eyeballing" was a good 2 inches out of whack. And indeed, this skirt went together so much easier than any halloween costume I've ever made.
Which makes it really too bad that I also learned:

2) Simplicity is on crack with sizing.
I usually wear a size--oh let's say 14. And I realize that sizes are different, look at the measurements blah blah. I did this and actually it looked like the simplicity 14 would be way too big int he waist, but ok in the hips. Well, my skirt doesn't fit. It is too short (which I could fix) and too small--which I maybe can fix. But seriously, I think I'd need an 18 in Simplicity and 14 in regular clothes, how is this not in anyway not messed up?
But it very well could be that I messed up. Perhaps I always thought I wore a certain size, say 14 because even though practically every other size 14 out there in the whole world fits me, I've been tricked by vanity sizing and I really wear an 18. But I must say... in vanity size (aka Liz Claiborne) I wear nearly an 8.

So, I slipped the skirt on when I was ready to put in the zipper and discovered that no way was it ever going to fit me. At least not unless I found a way to expand it somehow. Which was really too bad because up to that point things were going super smooth. I think I have a way to fix it. I think I can throw in another panel of skirt and then figure out how to expand the waistband and then I'll have a really short skirt that fits and I'll have to wear leggings under.

But I've learned my lesson for skirt #2.

And I also managed to find a dress for the banquet. By all accounts it looks good on me.

tap tap is this thing on?

2010-04-08T16:56:00.000-04:00

Whoops, I didn't mean to not update for almost a whole month. Being sick really put me behind on lots of other stuff around the house and I guess I've been a little off my game because until this month, I don't think I could have said that I didn't knit anything for more than a day. Coincidently, I also didn't watch much tv....

But I did finish (again) some socks:

They don't match and it bothers me just a little, but that's what happens when you get a knot! in your self striping yarn.

Also, if you have been reading for any length of time, you'll know I am terribly indecisive about ... well everything. So, you know some serious time has passed when I can announce with great decisiveness a new project.

After tons of looking through stores for just the right skirt, I finally caved to the four or five people who said--just make one. And so tomorrow, I'll be cutting into this:

To make view E of this: skirt. Although it shouldn't surprise you that I went on a day patterns were 99 cents and I bought another one, which I'll show later if I actually decide to make it.

I'm not all decisions decisions, I also bought material to make a second skirt because I couldn't decide at the fabric store!

This is also a big thing for me because I don't think of myself as an accomplished sewer. Sure, I quilt and make halloween costumes (and pjs) but real clothes that people wear? nope. But I think I can handle this. If I can't I have more shopping ahead of me.

Oh and I'm back on the knitting horse, knitting some socks (of course) and obsessing about the next knit project.

oops

2010-03-12T20:58:00.000-05:00

I don't consider myself a sock knitter. But I knit a lot of socks. I think this is because I like to wear hand-knitted socks and the only person in my life making them for me is, um me.

I also tend to make a lot of plain socks in fun sock yarns. In a way this is because I tend to buy fun sock yarns. Really, I know of few other projects that I would use a lot that take only one or two skeins (I actually have three one skein project books in hopes that someday I might use up all the other one skein things I have bought over the years). So I tend to buy a lot of sock yarn.

I've recently become quite taken with toe up socks. Nothing fancy, just double pointed needs, one at a time, with a heel done the way Ann Budd told me too in Interweave knits (the one issue that is very much used at my house). I think I've knit well I've lost count, I'm sure ravelry would tell me, but lets say more than 6 pairs of socks from this pattern. And always I dutifully follow the directions and designate which stitches are for the heel and which are the instep. Until now.

I've been working on this pair of socks since November. I've stopped along the way and made Christmas gifts and panda sweaters and bee sweaters and olympic projects, but I've always had these socks going. And Wednesday night I finished them. I prepared to wear them to work on Thursday. There's a smart knitter out there who knows where this is headed.

Yep, somehow I managed to knit one of them crooked. So when I put the sock on my heel the toe goes across my foot instead of across my toes. That morning I was convinced I had to rip the entire thing out and start over. Thankfully I had to go to work. After I had woken up a bit--ok after lunch--I remembered that I only had to rip out to just past the heel--I only had to re-work half the sock! I is smart.

Olympics

2010-03-01T16:26:00.001-05:00

So, the knitting olympics. Well, when I picked my project and decided I'd participate, I was just getting over a really bad cold. I figured I'd finish the bee sweater, make the repairs on the panda sweater and still have time for the project (pretty thing by the Yarn harlot). In fact I remember thinking, and if I finish this early I'll attempt to finish these socks I started.

Pardon me while I laugh.

First, let me say that I had what might be called an unforeseen injury. Two days after the olympics began, I broke out in the worst case of hives I have ever had. EVER. I itched, I swelled, I hurt. The culprit turned out to be one of the antibiotics I had taken for my secondary infection (brought on by the cold).
I lost 4 days to those hives.

At any rate, I soldiered on. I made an error that set me back a day. I made several more that set me back several hours. I thought about trying cheese since it seemed to work for Lindsey Vonn.

In the end, the closing ceremonies were on my birthday (and my daughters') and though I was a mere 7 rows from the end, I opted instead to talk with my mom and brother on the phone, eat dinner with my family AND have ice cream afterwards.
It was a tactical decision and made it so I did not finish until about 11am this morning. And that's only if you don't count blocking.

I bought a special 16 inch us 3 addi turbo circular for this project and used Buckingham which is a alpaca silk blend. I only used half the skein, but I think it might be cutting close to attempt another out of it. Maybe if I cut it down a few rows. At any rate, I had what Bob Costas might call the "agony of defeat" when after binding it off, it barely went over my head. But barely is the word and it went.

bee sweater

2010-02-15T18:50:00.001-05:00

I'm glad I set my Knitting Olympic bar low. Here it is day four and I've barely cast on my designated project. Instead I spent the part of the opening ceremony finishing up the bee sweater.

I am very pleased with how it turned out. I did have to learn a new technique, for the color changes so they wouldn't have jogs. I chose the technique that has you slip the first stitch of the new color (on what would be the second round of that color) and for the most part it worked. I can only see one place where it doesn't look seamless.

My daughter was also pleased and she wore it immediately to a birthday party, then wanted to know if it was out of the laundry yet for school Monday. She also decide that her 100 day collection of 100 things was going to be 100 pieces of yellow and black yarn leftover from her sweater.

But all is not real happy... we had an incident with the panda sweater in which the white yarn felted slightly. And as a result, it is now too short. I was very surprised because a) the yarn is superwash wool (knit picks swish worsted) and b) it was only the white--a color that is notorious for NOT felting. So, since I have extra white, I decided that I'll put off my knitting olympic project and take out the bind off and maybe the ribbing and extend the length of the panda sweater. I know that the yarn won't look the same, and I'm ok with that. I haven't decided if I want to rip back the 1.5 inches of ribbing or just start more ribbing until I get the length I need. I'm leaning toward ripping. It is not too badly felted at the ribbing, and I have enough length to add (would you believe at least 2 inches) that I think that might be best.

Knitting Olympics!

2010-02-12T16:41:00.001-05:00

I so much want to participate in the knitting olympics. I've been struggling for the last 2 days about what my project should be. What will be a sufficient challenge for me to knit in the next 17 days, but won't make me crazy.
I doubt I could pull off a pair of socks. I think I could make another bee or panda sweater--although I'll be finishing the neck on the bee sweater tonight as everyone else is casting on for the olympics. So really I'll be knitting 16 days.
I also didn't want to make it too easy, which is why I didn't just want to finish a pair of socks that I've already started.

In the end, I decided, because this is a fun thing and not a SERIOUS thing, that I would attempt to knit "pretty thing" and should it prove too easy--I'll attempt to also finish that sock I've got languishing.

Let the games begin!

the bee sweater

2010-02-04T14:28:00.001-05:00

Cinnamonamon once told me she was too sick to knit. I mocked her terribly. How could you be too sick to knit? And then in the middle of the bee sweater I was felled by some germs. Some evil germs.
I have gotten some knitting in, but not like what you would expect of someone who has spent the last 3 days on the couch. Part of it is that I am so tired, that basically I read for an hour and then sleep for an hour.

I have apologized to her. I am trying to eek out a couple of rows every day. And I'm starting, very slowly to feel better.

Knitting fast and furious

2010-01-25T16:42:00.001-05:00

On Friday, as predicted, I finished the panda sweater

And Saturday I started the bee sweater

must.
knit.
fast.

Back to it.....

panda sweater progress

2010-01-22T15:20:00.001-05:00

I've been working away on the panda sweater and have made quite good progress.

And most importantly--it fits her! I wish I'd had the camera out when I tried it on her (for length mostly, but I was glad it fit everywhere). I was kind of nervous given that I am working with a "homemade pattern." Which is funny because I often have better luck with the more organic patterns.

Since I took that picture, I've knit even more and finished both sleeves and am starting on the collar. I'm hoping to have it finished tonight, so I can start the "bee" sweater.

I realized, that I've never explained this sweater, although it feels like I have because of the "lost" post.
The pattern:
I had wanted to buy a pattern, but I couldn't find a top down raglan that was for kids. At the LYS, I talked to Martel who suggested that I could use the woolworks pattern. I don't know why I always think I'm going to mess up some math thing, I have a calculator and I know how to use it. But for some reason I do. But this time, I just took a deep breath and swatched. Now that I know that it fits, I'll feel more confident starting the next sweater--because it will be roughly the same size.

The Yarn:
I'm using knit picks swish worsted which is 100% superwash merino and it washes up soooo soft. (Size 7 needles if anyone cares) I underestimated how much black I'd need for this sweater--which turned out to be 3.5 skeins. So the other day, I bought some more, so I can do the bee sweater. I hated to spend the money for the shipping, but I have both girls pushing me along (knit faster mama!) and so waiting for any reason just wasn't going to work.

The Plan:
Finish the panda sweater tonight and start the bee sweater tomorrow and knit like crazy.

panda sweater

2010-01-10T18:58:00.000-05:00

I started this whole post on how I am knitting a sweater that looks like a panda for my panda crazy daughter.

I wrote about how It was helping me to get better about relaxing and breathing and just diving in at knitting. About how I am taking the leap of faith of plugging my own numbers into a pattern, doing the addition and multiplication and trusting it to come out.

I wrote about how my concept of black sleeves and white middle to make my daughter look like a panda, but how she kept asking where the face was going to be. I said sweater, she heard, evidently, costume. So I'm kind of on tap for a hat with ears. I might have even written about how I think between the panda sweater and the striped "bee" sweater I'm afraid I need a few more skeins of black.

But then I got called to dinner, saved my post and... well it didn't save.
I think I swore more at that than anything I've done for the panda sweater. And when I get over it, I'll fill in the details.

holiday decompress

2009-12-28T10:57:00.000-05:00

Time to decompress from the holidays! And time to show off the socks I made for my MIL. She's been hinting for a while that she'd like some handmade socks, but has been hesitant because most of the sock yarn I buy is wool. I understand that she probably has this wool=itchy thing going, but in my opinion superwash wool is a whole different thing. Plus all you have to do is feel some lopi and some super soft merino and you'll be wondering how two different things can both be called wool. Anyway, I found some cascade fixation in some nice bright colors and viola!

Also nice that she didn't balk at my photographing her feet.

I showed you all the scarf I made for the first grade teacher. I made it from silky wool on US size 4 needles. I was mighty sick of it by the time I finished. I ended up using 2.5 skeins, but could have used more and made it longer, if I hadn't run out of time. I was going to knit until Friday of that week and block Saturday and give on Monday. However, I ended up with so much other stuff to do that I quit knitting earlier in the week and blocking Friday. I blocked it at MIL's house since she was away and didn't need her kitchen floor. The pictures I took were all while it was blocking. My blocking board that several people liked is actually a set of Sesame Street foam puzzle blocks that my girls got for Christmas when they were two. They were headed for Goodwill when I spotted something similar in the knit picks catalog. Now they live in my knitting corner and every once in a while the ladies will get all bent out of shape that I'm using THEIR toy.

Anyway, there are already projects on the horizon. I got a ton of yarn for Christmas and the panda and bee sweaters are the next order of business.

done

2009-12-21T16:26:00.002-05:00

I finished the scarf. It did not turn out the be 80 inches. I got busy so it turned out to be 76 inches. She seemed to like it. Details later:

I had to block it at my MIL's because it turns out that I don't have 70+ inches of long space that won't get run over 20 times a day.

72 inches

2009-12-14T15:13:00.001-05:00

72 inches. That's how long "the scarf" is. The pattern says, repeat pattern until scarf is 80 inches long or ~~you get very very tired of it~~ has reached desired length. I did end up needing that third skein of silky wool, so I was glad I worried enough about that to buy it. I have decided that I am going to 80 inches or Friday night whichever comes first. I'm binding that puppy off on Friday, and blocking it Saturday so I can gift it Monday afternoon.

After that, I guess it is back to socks.

I don't consider myself a sock knitter, but I do happen to have a LOT of socks in my journal at Ravelry and just generally. I like wearing handknit wool socks in the winter, and now that I have 6 or 7 pairs I'm pretty happy. I also like having a sock going just for traveling and for fun. In fact I have one now that I started and got the heel turned before I started in on the Scarf. It may be just the intermediate project between the scarf and the next big project.

For Christmas, I asked for yarn to make both of my girls' sweaters, and I'd like to start those as soon after as I can (how can I be sure I'm getting the yarn? Oh come on, I put yarn on my Christmas list and I get it because my family KNOWs that I love yarn. They don't understand it exactly, but they do know it. Plus if I don't, well I'll buy it.)
I've had this idea in my head for one of my daughters, she loves pandas. I thought wouldn't it be fabulous to knit a colorwork panda into her sweater! I mentioned to my husband a panda sweater and his idea was different, he thought make the arms and top black and the main body white and actually that sounded easier and cuter. I have in mind a top down raglan, but I don't have a pattern. I'm pretty sure such a thing exists though.

It did present a problem, about what to do with her sister, who doesn't really care for pandas. So I asked her, since it wasn't going to be a surprise or anything and she immediately said she wanted a bee sweater. I'm not sure what style that will be, but right now I'm thinking just a plain set in sleeve would work great. They both want hats to match. I suppose if I left it up to them, they'd both want socks to match too, but we won't go there.

That's where things stand, 72 inches, very tired of the lace pattern, finishing on Friday regardless, and working on socks until I open my Christmas yarn.

Project process

2009-11-30T15:15:00.001-05:00

Despite my frantic knitting away, and the space between these entries, I have nothing to show.
So instead of showing, I'll write out my knitting project checklist that I seem to use for each and every project. In between each and every one of these you could insert--check ravelry

1) Choose a project
2) dither about project
3) consider about 20 yarns for project
4) reject 15 yarns
5) debate merits of remaining 5 yarns
6) choose a color
7) decide color sucks, choose another
8) decide just to buy whatever color I can find in an appropriate yarn
9) Worry about amounts purchased
10) swatch for project
11) reject first swatch,
12) reswatch
13) start project
14) worry about yarn amounts
15) worry about size
16) finish project

Usually there are also abut 10 steps between 13 and 14 which include curse pattern, rip back, and decide to use different needles.

I decided on pattern, yarn and needles for the teacher's scarf and have already made it to #14. Today I just decided to suck it up and buy an extra ball of the yarn. I think I'll need it. I'm also adding, worried about finishing this in time.

I decided on lace ribbon Scarf In black because it goes with more stuff. If it comes out right it could work an inside scarf too. I went with Silky Wool. I had a ball from a while back that was all silk and wool--now it seems it has nylon in it as well. Honestly, I am not enamored with it. Also--it is going really really slow--and I've made more mistakes than I care to admit.
Right now I'd estimate I have 30 of the 80 inches. stay tuned.

in a holding pattern

2009-11-11T14:47:00.002-05:00

Whenever I finish something I get a little stalled. Well either that or I cast on a bunch of stuff. Well this time, I'm a little stalled. I think it is because I know that I need to get started with some gift knitting. And as you might have figured out by now, I am not a snap decision maker. (By the way, the send the denise set in for a replacement won--it got two votes. You could still vote by going here.)

Most of the time I knit for me. But I do like to knit for other people, I just don't get much opportunity (although my daughters would probably both like a sweater this winter--so maybe after the gifts are done). This year though I am making a family member a gift and since one of them might read here, I won't say much more. I will though tell you about the teacher gifts because while I might reasonably expect my family to read, I'm pretty sure the teacher doesn't.

Last year I made both the teacher and the teacher's aide scarves. Scarves are good because it wasn't much of an investment in time or materials and yet still were lovely. This year I only have one teacher but two kids in the class so I was thinking I'd still make 2 gifts. I usually save the food gifts until the end of the year because by then they know me well enough that food might get eaten and people don't overload teachers with food in June like they do in December (last year I baked a loaf of bread and stuck in some homeade jam--the kindergarten teacher ate it THAT day). So, I'm starting to think about knitted gifts.

Of course I've only gotten through the thinking stage. I know that drop stitch scarves are both attractive and easy. I know the teacher's favorite color is puprle, as is mine, so stash might come into play here. Both girls and MIL have all suggested socks as one present. I hesitate with the socks though because I'd have to subtly size her feet and not everyone likes handknit socks--especially if they've never worn them. Although I did think felted slippers might be fun. I've searched on ravelry and come up with a couple of scarves and cowls (including the yarn harlot's pretty thing) that I want to make for ME. And I had a funny thing happen.
I saw that someone had made Lace Ribbon out of Lorna's laces in the lakeview colorway which has a beautiful mix of purple and teal, and it was lovely. I recalled I had some and got a little sad about making a teacher's gift from it because I knew I had bought it because I wanted socks made from it. Well a quick look at my sock yarn stash shows me that I already made socks from that yarn. OOPS.

I also bought the Interweave knits holiday gifts issue--which was $14.99! Thank goodness for Joann's coupons. (and as an aside, I think that this $14.99 crap is really going to force more people to buy this mag someplace where they can get a hefty discount--which makes me sad for the lys) I don't know if I would make he same decision again, but there is a nice lacy scarf in there.

So here's where I am at. I'd like to make 2 gifts--felted (or not) slippers and a scarf of some sort. I'd like to make them all in purple (although not matching cause that's weird). I'd like to use some stash yarn--although I'm finding it hard to part with a lot of the purple because I LURVE it so much. What this means is that ironically--I probably won't use any stash yarn as most of what I'm willing to part with isn't purple. Although I do have some silky wool in purple that I might be able to let go. And I don't think I have anything purple that will felt--at least not in quantities sufficient for slippers.

So that's where I am, knitting something secret, planning the teacher gifts.

Oh PS in the last entry I was asked a question about finishing (sewing seams), I should work up a post on that because unlike a lot of knitters, I actually like finishing.

Hoodie and halloween!

2009-11-04T10:55:00.000-05:00

I was going to spread these out a bit so I'd have more blog fodder, but I am too excited.
I finished a bunch of stuff!
First, I finally finished my Central Park Hoodie. I put off writing about it because I had to take the pictures myself and they didn't come out all that great.

It is a little snugger than I'd like--but I tend to like my clothes big and baggy. It does fit, it would close if it had some closure type thing on it. I did buy buttons, but I wanted to wear it so I decided to wait on the buttons and I think I like it button less. We'll see.
For the record: The yarn is Wool of the Andes from knit picks, in sapphire heather. I used size 6 needles and made a size 40. Have I mentioned that I LOVE it. I actually have to stop myself from wearing it every day. Maybe someday I'll even put the buttons on (obviously I opted to go with the crochet chain button loops). I do think it would also look good with a zipper. Ok, I'd love to make this again, but I might make the next size up next time.

Then came Halloween and of course I had the costumes done. Even though when I was making the giant tie that the clown had requested, I broke a needle and it went flying at my EYE. A small piece hit my glasses and I think another tiny piece got in my eye which was all watery and irritated for a day. They were so cute, and ultimately very happy with their costumes.
(masks for Internet privacy)
They were totally thrilled, and most people recognized what they were supposed to be. In my opinion this is win win for costumes. I love trick or treating with them because people will tell them how much they like their costumes and they both proudly say--mom made them!. Warms my heart.
We did go through a little bit of angst about perhaps clown wasn't the first choice (she waffled between that and penguin) but in the end everyone loved her costume, primarily for the wig.

And for some reason I lost this part of my post where I said I had some gifts I was working on. I suppose that will be a post for another day.

harry potter and a POLL

2009-10-22T20:39:00.002-04:00

It has been a long day today--actually a long week. But I had some finished socks and going to test a poll.

I finished My Harry Potter socks.

That's Opal's Harry Und Ron colorway

One is just pulled up farther on my leg--they really are the same size.

Other projects are moving along too. With 9 days left to go I have completed most of the clown outfit. The pattern said--easy 2 hour pattern and I think I might actually have two hours in on it now and only have the neck casing and elastic to do, plus whatever "collar" gets decided upon. Actually I only have 8 days. EEP!

I'm also seaming up my central park hoodie and I think it might actually fit me. I bought buttons, but have no idea if they'll work. Details later.
While I was knitting the border of the hoodie (308 stitches OY), something happened to me that was simply horrifying. the 19" cable on my Denise set (which was hooked to some other one so I could have cable long enough for 308 stitches) broke. as in the little connector thing snapped off. So, here's my decision: I could buy a new 19" cable for $5 total (and pick pink or blue--my set is blue) or I could for the cost of a padded envelope and one way shipping plus $1 send it in for a replacement via Denise's lifetime warranty. I figure both options will cost me close to the same. So--which should I do:

Feel opinionated beyond this--leave me a comment! But please, I love my Denise set and so no anti-denise sentiments.

waxy leaves

2009-10-19T15:25:00.000-04:00

This weekend the ladies and I did two things I've never ever done before.
First we found something in a parenting magazine we wanted to try and second, we tried it. The project was waxing leaves.

Now, the magazine article touted it as fun to do with your kids AND a great way to make fall decorations. Well.... I decided after doing it that it was one of those OR statements rather than an AND. What I mean is, you could either have fun with your kids or make something to decorate your home. But unless your kids are way more talented than mine, or you are way more controlling about art projects than I am, you probably won't end up with something you'd want to decorate with. Oh that sounded negative--it was FUN!

So here's what we did:
First I bought some Paraffin wax. The website I had to consult because the magazine we read this in was in a doctor's waiting room, said that you could find it in the canning aisle of your supermarket and whoa, they were right.
(please excuse my messy counter)

We collected a bunch of leaves on Friday on the way home from school and pressed them under a few knitting books.

The directions all said, use a tin can on a double boiler, but my MIL who uses the same wax in peanut butter balls (all I can say about that is eww, I knew there was a reason I didn't like those--I always thought it was the peanut butter.) melts hers in the microwave. I started with a tin can on a double boiler, but found the microwave (in a glass dish to work easier--but it was harder to clean up. Also the directions online said to add water tot he paraffin, which I forgot to do.

Then it was only a matter of dipping the leaves in

Of course the girls were a little heavier with the wax than I would have been, and we probably should have added the water and re-heated the wax more often.
But I think the results weren't bad. And as I said we had a lot of fun.

not done yet.

2009-10-09T14:19:00.000-04:00

The last time I wrote I had a bunch of stuff I had deadlines for and I was feeling a trifle overwhelmed. I actually haven't finished anything.

I've finished all the pieces for my Central Park Hoodie, and they are all blocked. But it took me 2 days worth of knitting to pick up the 308 stitches for the button band. I haven't even finished knitting a single row of that one, but we'll see the weekend is almost here.

I started my second Harry potter sock in time to take it to book club. I like having a sock going all the time, and I think after I finish this one, I'd like to start another pair. I may have you guys help me decide what to do.

I also got a big chunk of the first halloween costume (kimono) done. I had this big mental block on sewing the lining, but I got it sorted out. Then I had this epiphany on cutting out the sleeve lining that was supposed to save me a bunch of fabric. And it did! A whole sleeves worth. Of course I only managed to cut out one sleeve lining instead of two. The sleeves are on the agenda for today. I can't remember if I had bought the fabric for costume #2 (clown) when I last wrote (and am too lazy to go back and read) but it is now purchased and washed and pressed. I'd like to start on it this weekend.

I feel like everything is going so much slower than it should. I had a girl stay home one day this week and I got NOTHING done that day. Next week there is a field trip one afternoon, and an online training one morning, both of which will kill about a day of my time "off."

Well I'd best get back to it.

Projects, goals oh my

2009-09-18T17:14:00.000-04:00

All last week I kept thinking I would write about my goals. Then I got worried about what maybe it said about me that I had goals for my hobbies, then I decided they weren't goals per se they were projects.
Then I thought I should just knit or sew instead of writing about the things I wanted to knit and sew. You can see now why I've not updated in a while.

Anyway, it feels like I have a lot on my "crafting" plate. Perhaps in part because I always forget how busy fall is, with school starting and halloween and my family's annual visit north. Sometimes it makes me feel better to list things I have going especially things with deadlines. But sometimes it doesn't. Let's see how this one turns out.

I really only have deadlines on the halloween costumes. I am on tap to create a "china girl" costume--which is actually a kimono (although I have looked it up--if you google china girl kimono you end up with Mulan) and a clown costume. Those must be done by the school halloween party which I think is on the 30th. I'm still waiting for the school to send out the calendar of "important dates"

I have purchased most of the fabric I'll need for the kimono, and in fact have cut out the top fabric. I still need to cut out the lining and the trim. I may (or may not we'll see) need a bit more fabric. I've looked at the instructions and it might actually go together easily. I also need to look and see if I have enough fusible interfacing. And since my craft area is moderately cleaned out, I actually think I know where my fusible interfacing is!

I have not purchased material for the clown costume, and I'm sort of counting on the fact that the pattern says--2 hours! on it. Not that I'll be there 2 hours before she needs it sewing, if I can help it, but it is nice to know the pattern company thinks it is quick and easy.

I guess I kind of have a deadline on my central park hoodie. I picked it back up again and am soldering on. I have the back and both sides done, and should block them this weekend. I'd like to be wearing it when the weather turns fallish. Which given Michigan, could be next week or could be November.

I kind of have a deadline for the Harry Potter socks I started when I was fussing about the CPH. I'd like to have the second one cast on before the next book club meeting in October. (so I can bring it and knit) It is getting to be wool sock weather and I'm loving that I have 2 new pair to wear--two that I almost completely forgot about.

Of course then there are all the other things. The things I want to do. the things I've started to do. I started a set of potholders, I want to start finishing the works in progress, I want to knit the dollar and a half cardigan, I have a shrug's worth of Blue sky Alpacas silk/alpaca I'd like to do something with. In the meantime, the house needs to be clean--including the dumping ground we sometimes call the guest room. There just aren't enough hours.

Adam's quilt

2009-09-05T20:40:00.001-04:00

A while back ago I finished, rather spectacularly, a baby quilt. Because the recipient is my cousin, and I knew she watched my flickr and my facebook pages I couldn't really post progress pictures there, or say much of anything for my facebook status, but one day I wrote: Just had a whoo hoo moment. Because when I finished this puppy I actually hollered WHOO HOO!

The pattern is from M'lss Rae Hawley's book Scrappy Quilts. The cover pattern. One of the things I like about Hawley's books is that she always includes a "gallery" of quilts in the book done in other color combos. I've passed by patterns in the book only to discover something cool in the gallery and realize that the colors were what made the quilt seem special. In this case, one of the gallery quilts was in all pinks, which had a cool effect.
I did blues because she knew the baby was going to be a boy and thought blues would look like the pinks, but no dice. I threw in the yellows because blue by itself was really kind of dull.
I had a horrible time with the blocks and ended up turning hem all over to my MIL to get them to lie flat.

The trick it seems is that two triangles need to make a 90 degree angle. So MIL cheated on those--cutting them if they weren't. All in all I was very happy even if this pattern was a bit beyond my skills. I only purchased border fabric and the yellow on the corners. And seriously it should not be so hard to find a decent non-gold bright but not dark yellow.

My cousin called the other day to let me know she loves it, and also to let me know that now her oldest son was glad that they each had their own quilts. (this one is mine mine mine, were his exact words.)

snag

2009-09-01T14:19:00.001-04:00

I actually have a finished object, but as far as I know it is still in transit to its recipient. So until it gets there, I guess I'll have to confess something.

I stopped knitting on my central park hoodie.

See, I finished the back and started on one of the sides, and did it ever look small. Like really small. So I checked guage and huh, I was getting 16.5 stitches to 4 inches instead of the 17.5 asked for, which theoretically if my math is correct means it should be bigger. But I do most of my math as I'm falling asleep--I think it soothes me. I checked the schematics and found that the sides were supposed to be 10 inches wide. I measured and realized that my sides *might* block out to eight and if the button band were on that would be 9.5 and that all sounded like way too skinny. So I ripped the side out. Here's what can't figure out, I pinned out the back and measured it and I can get it to the required 20 inches, pretty easily.

I went back to ravelry and checked to make sure I was using the same needle size and everything! I've heard it runs small but, really should I have to make something eight inches larger than my measurement to get a few inches of positive ease? This would mean either making the sides a size (or two) larger than the back and fiddling with the sleeves OR ripping out the back and starting over.

I can't decide which to do so I started a sock.

WIPS

2009-08-20T13:08:00.000-04:00

I know that the topic of WIPs or Works in progress is one fraught with drama and espionage. You know people hide them, pretend they don't exist.

I don't have many WIPs in my knitting life (right now). And depending on your definition of a WIP, I may never. See I always defined them as Works in progress, that is works you started but have not finished for some reason. You could still be working on it, you could have encountered a problem and set it aside for a while or perhaps you just lost interest in it. But then I saw on Knitting Daily that they were defining a WIP as a piece you had set aside for a while, perhaps never to finish.

By my definition--just a project you've started and isn't finished yet--really no value judgment implied about why--perhaps it is the active project--perhaps it isn't, I have 2 knitting WIPS. I'm not counting the socks I have a swatch for but have not cast on. The two I have are--the central park Hoodie I'm working on and a doll sweater I made that doesn't fit the doll and I need to make a decision about (of course it has been more than a year that I made this, but eh).

Up until last month I would have said something similar about sewing. Then we cleaned out the basement. I discovered in that process that I'm really much worse at the WIPS in my sewing than in my knitting. I not only have the "active project" going but at least ~~three~~ ~~four~~ ~~five~~ six (that I've found so far) that are in various stages.
1) Turtle wall hanging that I started Oh who knows how long ago. This one was complicated because all the shells were hexagons, but now I know the secret to making flat hexagons (give them to MIL to do--ha ha) maybe I'll get to this.

2) turtle wall hanging #2--this was actually turtle fabric as the main fabric and was supposed to hang in my kitchen--at the last house, nine years ago. I have a table cloth that matches--which is done BTW. The problem with this is that it is paper pieced and I get tired of that after a while.

3) Crazy quilt from reproduction fabrics. This is also paper pieced but I have a ton of scraps for it--I was thinking bed sized, but all the squares are 4 inches so it might take a while.

4)A skirt. I actually started this so long ago, I can't remember what the entire plan was. I out grew it then shrunk back to its size.

5) a denim quilt. All the pieces cut, just needs to be sewn together--not even quilted!

6) doll dress--the doll thing waxes and wanes so much here that I'm not sure I will finish this.

I was sure there were more, but that's all that comes to mind. I'm sure that as I continue to clean I'll run across more. Of course that doesn't count everything I have fabric purchased for or that I'd like to make (because then I'd have to confess the 40000 knitting projects of the same ilk).

I also wanted to comment about Tricia's comment on the post about the central park hoodie--and I can't figure out how Blogger will let me comment directly. Tricia wants to know why I suspect that the sweater won't fit me--this is a great question especially considering that I have only knit part of the back (now I'm nearly finished with the back but then I only had about 10 inches). Well, I do the really scientific thing of holding it up to me and saying, man this looks so small! I go through this every time and let me tell you I have only been right once.

New space

2009-08-13T21:45:00.000-04:00

I haven't written in ten days, so you'd think that I have gotten gobs knitted, but really I've been working on my space.

You see when we bought our house, we turned the partially finished basement into my sewing room--or design studio. I didn't knit then, I didn't have children then. Now, I do both and the poor basement got neglected until it resembled something from the messiest home in America. So a few weeks ago we decided to clean it out, rip out the ugly carpet and start over, creating a full on craft room that all of us could enjoy. So for the past few weeks we've hauled tons of stuff to Goodwill, thrown away several bags of trash and are slowly putting back what's left (and still finding things we neither want nor need). My daughters have moved down there and are itching to start "crafting"--although the new carpet is so pretty we need to find someway to make it stay pretty and still be able to use ink (for rubber stamps), glitter, and glue. We're thinking plastic sheeting.

Tthe first project to get sewn in there, if I ever can get my space cleared up is the quilt I'm working on for my cousin. It has borders and is pin basted and ready to quilt. My MIL is letting me borrow her sewing machine, that comes with the portable table (because I stepped on mine--the room was that messy) and it is all set up and ready to go. Now I just need to use it.

I also swatched and started on the central park hoodie. I can't believe how easy this pattern is--and yet with a nice elegant cable. I'm about halfway up the back and already starting to worry that it won't fit AND that I'll run out of yarn--both of which are par for the course with me.

I don't have any pictures, and really not much more to add to that.

starting over

2009-08-03T11:19:00.001-04:00

When I worked at the yarn store, I used to hear people say--they were "afraid" to make different projects. Sometimes I see that on ravelry or Knitting Daily. I never really understood it--after all knitting is just string and some sticks making knots-- what's to be afraid of? Then I started swatching for the dollar and a half cardigan.

I should probably back up and say that usually when I start a project I thoroughly investigate it on ravelry. I look to see what other people have used to make a project, I search to see who else has used the yarn I'm considering. I look carefully at the finished projects, check the needles sizes etc, so I can get a good idea for what I think works. This also helps me to see if there are any problems with the pattern or tips that other have for working the pattern.
In doing this investigation on the dollar and half cardigan, I discovered that there are a few "things" going on. First, it appears that even though the pattern doesn't say it, you really need to use two sizes of needles--one for the lacework and one for the plain sections. If you do not, your piece will pucker. This was borne out by my swatch (which I washed and accidently dried and ugh ugh ugh it puckered). The second is that there is a trick to decreasing (for the armholes) in the lace that there is an entire tutorial about.
Because of how my first swatch worked out--and it wasn't even not really on guage--I really need to swatch again, using two different needles. But I don't want to.

Oh I still want the sweater. I still want to knit this even though it will probably be a pain, but yet I feel this tiny bit of... I don't even know. I'd call it fear but that's not quite right. Perhaps this is really what people mean when they say they are afraid of a project. It isn't so much a fear as much as a bit of something that says I don't want to put in a ton of work on something that won't turn out the way I want it too. And I do think that if I start this project now it has the potential to end up badly.
It has taken me several tiny little knitting projects--smaller even than socks (and they may end up being gifted so I'm not showing them off) to come to the conclusion that I need to set the dollar and a half cardigan aside and start on the next big project.

So I'm back to swatch land, this time I'll be swatching for the Central park hoodie

quilting, jam, and socks oh my!

2009-07-26T14:33:00.003-04:00

When I started this blog I envisioned it to be about knitting. Particularly some of my knitting problems (hence the name disasters with yarn). Then the first few things I had to write about were baby quilts. Then I wrote about jam. And of course I threw in some knitting too. Well today I have all three!
First the baby quilt.
My cousin recently had her second baby, a boy. And since she doesn't read this blog I can tell you about her baby quilt. I decided that I needed something splashy as she is an art teacher and the quilt I made for her first baby was WOW. So I picked finally to do a blue kaleidoscope from M'Liss Rae Hawley's Scrappy Quilts. I have never had so much trouble with a quilt. I could not for the life of me get the triangles to lay flat when they were sewn into the hexagons. Fortunately my MIL is a much better piecer than I am and she put all the blocks together for me. I did everything but that. Now it just needs borders.

And needs them quick because we are turning my "quilt studio" into a craft/play room and the new carpet is scheduled to come in in about a week or so. We still need to pick up my sewing things (which is now down to my sewing table and ironing board) and rip up the existing carpet and mop the tile underneath. Whew. I've decided that I'll be putting a border on this afternoon and moving everything after that, I'll get it ready to quilt while we clean that space and quilt it after we move back in.

Hmmmm there don't seem to be any pictures of the jam I made last week. Since we love strawberry so much I should probably only make that, but I like to play. So this year, I decided to make sour cherry jam. Now, sour cherries are not beautiful like sweet cherries are. They are small and squishy and well... gross. In fact so gross that not only did I not photograph them, I also couldn't bear to taste the jam until several days after I made it. The insides are yellow and so I was pleasantly surprised that after I blended them--and I did blend more than I usually like to with fruit jam, I like my jam chunky--that the resulting jam is reddish. ALso, I was surprised to find it tastes like cherry pie filling. The verdict from the family is that aside from the skins that it is good good good jam.

But perhaps most exciting is the knitting that got done this week. And by got done I mean:

These are Lace and Cable socks (size small!) from Socks from the toe up. The yarn is a knit picks bare that I dyed. I took them on vacation and nearly finished the first sock--the second one I took along everywhere for the last three weeks (swimming lessons, playgroup and tv knitting). And for what--socks that are too warm to wear until September! I got so warm posing in the socks that I didn't wait until I got a great picture--just an "ok you can see the socks and tell what color they are" picture.

I also finally got the lace pattern in the dollar and half cardigan sorted out and knit a swatch. The gauge for the pattern is in the lace pattern but I think I may have to go up a needle size for the lace, but I like the look of the reverse stockinette. I'm washing it first though, in case it grows. Ravelry tells me that many people use two different needle sizes so I'm guessing I'm not the first to look at the swatch and decide that. I do need to invest in a circular needle size US 4. I have a denise set and it only goes to size 5 and if the lace gets gauge at a size 6 I may want to bring the reverse stockinette down to a 4. Doesn't make for a whole lot of exciting knitting though.
So for now I have the tongue twister "sweater swatch" that I keep wandering around saying. Try it--say it five times fast.

socks!

2009-07-17T11:03:00.001-04:00

When I worked at the yarn shop, they told me summer is a bad time for yarn stores--mostly people just want to knit dishcloths and socks. I don't knit dishcloths, usually, in part because I don't use them. I do knit socks though.

Last time I updated I was deep into trying to figure out what to knit. Made in part way more urgent by an upcoming vacation. I like to knit in the car and I like small projects for that so I don't have to pack a ton of yarn. Socks are ideal. I really wanted to work with my Harry Potter sock yarn so I'd have Harry Potter socks for the movie (geek) but after swatching I decided that perhaps a plain pattern would work best with that yarn and by golly I did not want a plain pattern. I did some more swatching, this time with the knit picks yarn I dyed. I figured I was getting about 8 stitches to the inch and took off with the book, knitting socks from the toe up, the yarn and 2 sizes of needles--(my 1s and 1.5s not the zeros which was a mistake). What happened was quite funny. The first day in the car, I started on one pattern and quickly figured out that they would be huge! 8 stitches to the inch at 8 inches around and somehow my sock was coming out way to big. In part because I've learned, my foot is only 8.25 inches around and that means I should be making about a 7.75 inch sock. Which amazed me to discover my size 9 feet are considered small. I did a ton of math attempting to get the pattern to work out and in the end decided to find a pattern that came a bit smaller.
Very few patterns in that book came in a small. If I'd only had the size zero needles, I could have had a few more options.
Instead lace and Cable socks were about my only option.

I like them though.
I finished the first sock on vacation and have been working on the second sock since.

I keep trying to find some space to work on my swatch for the dollar and a half cardigan since I think I've worked out my problem with the pattern. I ended up writing out the lace pattern in a way that I can follow easily with a row counter. Because the lace pattern is written as a seven row pattern but you don't work it in order, instead you work row 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. So why not write it that way? I have no idea I don't write patterns. It was tedious copying it out onto a sheet of notebook paper, re-numbering all the rows, but I think it will help. And I'm sure after I get working on it, I'll be able to take it places and talk while I'm doing it.
I never thought I'd be able to do that with the sock, but I not only did that, I took it with me to swimming lessons and had to set it down mid-row on a chilly day to help my daughters into their towels. Go me.

Also for my future self, I ned to find a way to keep track of the jam I make because I made WAY too much peach last year and I have no idea how much I made. I finally got he strawberry right and have no idea on that either. This year I made 3 batches of Strawberry. I'm only making one peach. I'm going to try sour cherry too--I'll try to photo essay it.
Love Farmer's market:

swatch land

2009-06-21T11:24:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling a bit discontented.
I finished my socks that were on the needles (toe up basic pattern, knit picks Felici, k7p1 pattern on leg as suggested by Cinnamonamon)

And I was really hot (as in warm) during the photo shoot. So that kind of put me off the idea of starting new socks immediately. Then there was the idea that these were the second pair of socks I'd made almost exactly the same, I decided the next socks were going to have a pattern.

So at the library I found a copy of Socks from the Toe up By Wendy Johnson, and I love love love almost all the socks, but I'm suspecting it is because I love the colors. A lot of her patterns don't work too well with wild stripes or handpaints, which is what makes up the majority of my sock yarn collection. BUT, a quick search on ravelry shows that my Harry Potter sock yarn makes a good version of probably the one sock I didn't like in Wendy's book. (also shows that Jaywalker socks look pretty cool) But both give grave warnings about swatching (which is something I don't often do for socks--and it probably shows given about half my socks come out too big).

The other project I had wanted to start was the dollar and a half cardigan.

What ties these two together? swatching.
I'm deep in swatching land. My dollar and half swatch has showed me, that I need to pay attention to the lace pattern AND I probably need to use a size 6 needle, but I'll swatch that just to be sure--just as soon as I have the energy for the lace pattern--which really shouldn't be tricky after the swallowtail shawl, but it doesn't go row 1-7 it goes 1, 2, 3-6, then flips back to row 2, then something else then row 7. I get lost easily. My sock swatch looks like it could be a barbie minidress and I am not loving the texture. I really want to knit something up with my new handpainted yarn (the skein because I'm not up to the rainbow socks) but I have no idea what it would be.
I'm tired of swatching, I just want to knit something already. If I only knew what.

Adventures in color

2009-06-18T19:21:00.001-04:00

So, last week I decided that perhaps the last day of school would be the PERFECT day to dye some yarn. Well, it did seem perfect with it being warm and all. I forgot to factor in the kid input, but overall it didn't go too bad.

I had a knit picks sock blank and a skein of "bare" sock yarn, also from KnitPicks. The plan was to dye the sock blank in a rainbow pattern. And I had decided I liked the roygbivroygbiv as opposed to roygbivvibgyor pattern. The skein I wanted to go from a very light blue to a very dark blue. I was using food coloring--designed particularly to use as cake frosting dye. Specifically I was using Americolors gel dye. I took a class about 18 months ago and used this process with good results. In looking through my notes, I found them to be rather vagues, so I wanted to document the process here. I also decided to document my progress via photos.

So first, you soak the yarn for a few hours in a solution of water and vinegar--this part I had spelled out in my notes--3 parts water to 1 part vinegar. So after marking out the spacing on my blank, I soaked the skein and the blank for 4 hours.

Then I set up my supplies. Outside.

I had small paintbrushes, the dye, some water to mix it up, saran wrap, paper towels and gloves.
Then I laid out the saran wrap and it blew away.
So then I decided I'd mix up the dye and then do the saran wrap. Basically my notes from the class said a squirt of dye and water added until it looks right. I have no idea what "looks right" meant at that point in time. I fudged it. I think if you wanted to be more exact some old socks would make a great place to test your color palate out. I added probably a teaspoon of dye to 1/2 cup of water. And STIR! The red I bought was not americolor, it was a paste dye and it took significantly more stirring to mix it up and I was not satisfied even then with how it mixed up.

Then I laid out the saran wrap on the table and put the sock blank on that.

Then I painted the colors on. You do have to really use a lot of liquid to get it to go through. Knit picks shows them using a squirt bottle, and this probably would work too--I liked the feeling of control that the foam brushes gave me. Even with all the liquid I used, the color didn't fully permeate the sock blank.

And as you can see--the red doesn't look RED. Man I'm still mad about that.

I mixed up the blue and indigo on the rainbow because in the containers after mixing they all looked alike. Another note to make for next time--MARK the colors too.
After you get it all painted, wrap it up in plastic wrap and microwave in two minute increments until the water runs clear.

The "water" actually pools on the bottom. I'm not sure I got this cooked enough, as later the red kinda bled a little (stupid RED). Anyway, I let it cool while I did the skein. Now, I ran out of color on the skein and I never did get my light blue to look light enough so I went with some green too. I thought it looked pretty. It will probably pool like mad.

I had to really really work at getting the skein completely saturated, it was skeined up too thick I think. I flipped it and massaged it and poured dye into it. I still have some white spots. Anyway, I wrapped that up and cooked it too.

Then after everything was cool, I cut them open--because the plastic wrap gets a little um melted I guess. Then my instructions weren't clear as to whether I should rinse everything or not. So I did, because it still smelled vinegary. Will probably have to rinse again though. The red bled a little (ha a rhyme, not funny though) when I rinsed, so perhaps a bit more is in order, then I hung everything up to dry.

Several things worked well. I would not have done this inside. It was messy messy messy and the dye stuck really well to porous objects Although it washed out of cotton really well much to the dismay of my daughters who "tie dyed" some socks at the same time.
I got really bright colors--brighter than I remembered getting in the class--although I got a better red there! I'm STILL mad about the red! And I am really looking forward to knitting on these.

The next time I do this (and yes there will be a next time) I will:

* try to arrange for the kids to be gone. Because they wanted to help. I do think I might buy them each a skein and let them go to town, then make socks from the results for them. Perhaps as a back to school project--the knit picks skeins aren't too expensive, cheaper anyway than most store bought sock yarns (and my daughters love the hand paints, so you know I'll be actually saving money even if I have to buy 12 more colors of dye).
*I will not buy any paste color--just gel. I will probably test on some old socks how the colors are going together.
*I would probably Flip a sock blank over, just to be sure it was saturated, and I think I might spread the skein out more. Also--I'll be more careful with the colors if that is an important design element.

DONE!

2009-06-14T13:43:00.004-04:00

Usually when I've been not writing I can't think of what I must have been up to because I don't have a lot to show for it. This time, I have so much I'm saving some for the next entry.

First of all, I've been doing a little sewing, as my cousin's baby is due any time.

I've been struggling with getting the triangles to make nice hexagons, so my Mother in law has been doing that part. Makes me feel like I won't be able to claim this quilt as my own work, but she's making it look so much better than my attempts. My attempts are all bunchy in the center and don't lay flat. I have three more hexagons to do, and I'm going to lighten up on the yellow a bit I think. I love how it is turning out though. And it will end up being about 90% stash fabrics too. I need to buy some yellow for the corners (I have some dark blue also for the corners) and some border fabric. I need to go through my stash and see if I have anything appropriate for backing.

After all the fussing I did on the swallowtail shawl. Even going so far as breaking up with it. I picked it up again after finishing the hey teach and amazingly enough worked through the issue I was having. And suddenly I started liking it again. And it was a little easier. Then one night I realized I was really close to finishing, and equally close to running out of yarn. I did what any of us would do: I knit faster as it has been proven that if you knit fast enough you'll beat the end of the yarn. Of course this doesn't really work. Fortunately for me, I had used this yarn to start another lace project that hadn't worked out and I had clipped off 10 yards or so and set them aside--so a little russian join and I had a safety net. good thing too--because I hit that join in the bind off row.
Yep bind off row!

Whew, because this yarn is truly one of a kind. It is Knit picks bare, which I hand dyed oh maybe 18 months ago. In a class--so I could never recreate it. It looks even better blocking

Seriously, I love it. It should be dry soon.
Towards the end, I was so in love with this project that I knew I needed to get busy dyeing the other yarn I had. I also knew I had another lace project I wanted to cast on for.
So, Friday I finally took the plunge and dyed my knit picks sock blank and a skein of sock yarn. Details later (sneak peeks at flickr).

funny thing happened this weekend

2009-06-01T14:33:00.001-04:00

Over the weekend I finished my version of Hey teach!, which I called on Ravelry--Hey librarian. After all my futzing with the sleeves, I did get it to actually go on my arms, but maybe in reality land (you know the one everyone actually sees) I should have made the next larger size. It buttons, but looks um, not that greta buttoned. It does look cute and hip, mostly unbuttoned though.

I like it, but I think I'm having a little hard time with it because I need a tighter t-shirt under it than I usually wear, but I understand that's all the fashion. Plus it must look cute--I've been asked to join some group with the picture (despite the fact that my husband won't stand up when he takes pictures of me).

Probably the most unexpected on the results of finishing this sweater was that I picked up my lace shawl again. Yes, I was two stitches off, but I added those stitches and did something on the order of 8 rows (and when each row is over 200 stitches that's saying something). All the rows (with the exception of the one I did this morning were all exactly right. I'm debating unknitting the current row and figuring out what I did wrong. The pros are that it would be right and wouldn't take too long, the big con is that every time I have unknit a row, I've managed to botch it up worse than the mistake I started with. I was only one stitch off which effectively means my nupps (man that word sounds dirty) are a little off on one side. We'll see how I'm feeling the next chance I have to work on it. I need to get it finished though so I can use those needles again to start the next project. They are my denise set, so I can take the points off which will come in handy for the swatch.
I think best part, is how I am actually excited about the lace again. And working with it is making me get excited for the big dye project.

Houston we have a problem...

2009-05-26T20:50:00.000-04:00

And that problem is... fit.
I know I saw it coming, I've been afraid for a while now that my Hey Teach was going to be too small. Over the weekend I finished the button bands (and bought buttons, more on that later). and started seaming. When I had both sleeves sewn up and one side seamed, I slipped it on and it fits as long as I wear nothing under it, which is of course a big problem with a lacy bodice. For me anyway.
The biggest problem was the sleeves, they are just too tight. The rest seems to fit fine, and make me glad I didn't make the bigger size which would have been huge on me.

I figure that if you've knit something too small for you, you have 5 choices:
1) you can throw it down in disgust
2) you can rip it out and knit the larger size
3) you can diet until it fits
4) you can gift it to someone smaller than you
5) you can figure out how to make it bigger

Obviously, the first four just aren't happening here. I love my ice cream an d this sweater and I'm going to wear it this summer. So how to make it bigger? Well, my Knitting answer book suggests that you knit a gusset to fit in the sleeve. The main problem that I ran into was, that this portion is also done in the lace pattern. I stewed over whether to knit a stockinette gusset or fiddle with the lace. after a while I figured that if I fiddled with the lace I'd be happiest. So, an hour or so later I had the seam in the second sleeve ripped out and a new gusset knit. I guess this will have to be a to be continued, because I have no idea if it will work. I plan to finish the seaming on that side and see if it fits better, then rip part of the seam out on the other side, and knit a gusset for that.

But who'd want to rip out such a nice seam?!

Decisions....

2009-05-20T13:41:00.000-04:00

Work is ongoing on my Hey teach. Both sleeves are done but need to be blocked, and I have the shoulders seamed. Am picking up stitches for the neck and will start the button band probably later today. It occurs to me that I have no buttons for this project. Suppose I should get working on that--assuming that it will button when it is done.

The weather has gotten warmer here--finally and so I have started to think more and more about the next big project--sock dying. For Christmas, I was given a knit picks sock blank. The idea is that you can dye it into a pattern and then knit from the blank. The socks then will have the striping pattern you dyed. I asked for it because I decided that what I really really want is rainbow socks. And to that end, I did a bit of sketching:

To try to decide if it should go ROYGBIVVIBGYOR or ROYGBIVROYGBIV. I think I like the latter the best. I have all the materials--now I just need to actually do it. Especially since it is warm and I could do the dying outside if I needed to.
Which do you like the one on the left or the one on the right?

hey teach... er librarian

2009-05-15T15:19:00.002-04:00

I'm not done with Hey Teach but I thought this might be a good time to discuss some details about the project in part because I've had at least one comment about the project and because sometimes the excitement of finishing something overwhelms me and I forget details.

So ok, I decided that since my LSY doesn't carry second time cotton, the yarn called for in the project, I would search for some other yarn that might work. A worsted weight cotton blend was how I interpreted that and after much flopping around the LYS, I came away with 4 skeins of Cascade Sierra (color 42), which is a cotton and wool blend.
Then of course came the swatching and sizing issues.
I have a 36" bust and the small in this pattern measures at 35.5 which is .5 negative ease and the medium is 39 which is 3 inches positive ease. In all the ravelry pictures, the snugger the fit, the better the look, so I was really torn, then I swatched.
On size 6 (us) needles I got um not gauge. I can't remember exactly what it was. It was close. I made a math error and went up a needle size and was way off--should have gone down a size. Decided after doing some math with my gauge and the schematic that actually the gauge I was getting would make the 35.5 inch size a touch bigger--like a 36.5 so I decided that I'd stick with the size 6 (even though I wasn't completely in love with the look of the fabric) in part because my size 5's are wrapped up with some lace project that at the time I planned to actually work on. (Stitch holder being a non-issue thanks to interchangeable needles).

uh oh this is getting dull--cue pictures:

So as you can see the back is done. And I was worried about the lace shaping, charted it out for the back and everything. But by the time I started the first sleeve, I could read that lace so well that I pretty much know what to do without looking too close to the chart.
You can also see I have re-purposed some of my kids former toys as a blockign board. I must confess that I stole the idea from something I saw in knit picks. Those blocks were headed to Goodwill too!

I finished both the front sections and blocked those too. Although I ran out of pins and had to unpin the back before I did the fronts.

I decided to block differently than I normally do. Normally I soak everything then lay it out wet, but I did some reading and decided to give steam blocking a try. It seems to have worked out pretty well, but the fronts are still damp (well I only blocked them an hour a go so what do you expect).
So I have started on the first sleeve and am about half way done with it. I think I may sew the shoulder seams before I finish the sleeves, just because then I can work on the neck while the sleeves block. Or maybe not. We'll see what I feel like this weekend.
For the record, I'm still lightly worried about it fitting me. Stay tuned.

Stuff I'm working on

2009-05-07T20:27:00.001-04:00

So, I am still working on my version of Hey teach--I have the back and the left front done. I've moved pretty steadily through my usual worries about any sweater project i've ever had 1) is this a good color? 2) OMG I'm not going to have enough yarn! and finally 3) This isn't going to fit! I go through this with every single sweater I've ever knitted. I think I have enough yarn on this one--finally being convinced of this after getting within an inch of the top of the left front. I keep reminding myself that this sweater looks best with low amounts of ease, and surge forward.

I'm also still working on a quilt, although BLECH, it isn't coming out as I envisioned it. My mother-in-law has promised to help this weekend, which I think is gracious of her. She is under the impression that if I don't follow the instructions in the book that it will come out better--see where I get this urge to not follow the rules? Although she's probably right and in six months I'll stumble on errata that says so.

I also bought my mom some sock yarn for mother's day--sock yarn that I might add, I kind of want. but I have enough sock yarn, which leads me to:

Which I just started out of the need to have a sock going at all times. I don't have a special plan for it--so maybe 2X2 ribbing at the top? I love the yarn, which is knit picks Felici that I got for Christmas. And after these are done, I'm planning a foray into dyeing my own sock yarn--I have a knit picks sock blank, a skein of bare sock yarn and eight colors of frosting tint. Stay tuned.

Socks I made Socks!

2009-04-29T11:14:00.001-04:00

It occurs to me that I could be blogging about knitting right now or I could actually be knitting. So I'll leave you with some pictures of the bamboo lace socks. They are a little too wide for my feet. But they are so pretty.

And a closer view:

I'll also say that I'm working away on Hey Teach, but I'm at the decreasing lace part which means I have to do more thinking as I knit so it goes a bit slower. I should be nearly done with the back soon though, so I'll try to update with a picture soon.

I started new socks (or rather picked up where I left off on them) and bought some cake frosting dye for a dying adventure that I hope will happen in May.

And I have some sewing to do too.... busy times ahead, I'd best get cracking.

Hey Teach

2009-04-22T17:01:00.000-04:00

I have a confession to make. Remember how I was going to break up with that lace shawl. Well I ripped back to the beginning of the section that was giving me fits and I counted my stitches four times and then I did a bad thing.

I knit on it.

And I ended up with too few stitches on one side of the marker and too many on the other. Which might mean that the marker is in the wrong place, or I knit something wrong. The marker looks like it is in the right place. Sigh. I'm going to give it one more row as I think I've compensated for the differences, but I don't know how much more this yarn will take in regards to ripping out. So I'm setting it aside again for a while.

I started my version of Hey Teach!.

I have the back nearly to the arm shaping, which means that the lace pattern starts to get a bit tricky. Am thinking that given my problems with that lace shawl maybe I should dig out some graph paper and graph the decreases into the lace pattern. Well actually I should say that my first thought was to print out something on the order of 50 copies of the lace chart with the pattern and cut it up and go from there. But now I think graph paper might be a better visual, well and easier on the earth.

And no, I still haven't finished the bamboo lace socks, thanks for asking.

struggling

2009-04-13T14:02:00.000-04:00

Whenever there is a big gap in my blogging I feel like I should show lots of finished projects. Instead I guess I have lots of crafting problems.
Oh wait--I do have finished objects:

I made shrugs for my girls for their Easter outfits. Very cute and quite functional. I improvised the pattern--based loosely on the base for the Lacey-hug me tight.

I'm still struggling with the shawl, if only in my head. I need some quiet time to just look at it and try to figure out where I went wrong. then the guts to rip back as far as I need to. The former may be the hard part. Most of my quiet time happens after people are in bed, and I'm pretty tired then. But maybe Wednesday when the ladies are at school... if not it will be until the 23rd, which is sadly the next time I foresee being alone in the house AND being awake. I guess I could have worked it out this morning when I had about 90 minutes alone, but I'm still angry at it, so I sewed instead.

That was probably a mistake.
See I'm working on a quilt for my cousin (look away Britt, if you are reading) and something just isn't working. I cut some of my triangles so far so good:

But when I sewed them together--it was a mess. I think I need to check that I'm doing a 1/4 inch seam. My machine's .25 foot doesn't work (it breaks needles) and so I eyeball it probably more than I should. My machine quilting foot has a .25 gauge and so I'll hook that up and see if it goes better. Also--I'll probably trim the points on the triangles. I already checked that my ruler was cutting the same size as the template in the book, and it seems to be off by about 1/16th of an inch. It might be making a difference, but perhaps I can compensate. But I was very very very frustrated with the sewing this am.

I did go on a bit of a vacation...if you can call driving 1000 miles with two children a vacation. And since I was doing all the driving I did not get my usual large amount of car knitting done. I did however start the second bamboo lace sock. I'm working on the foot now--and unlike Some people I know I don't have small feet--so it could be a while. And we stopped by Needleworks when we were in Champaign. I thought it was a nice shop, a tad bigger than my LYS. I didn't feel as welcome as I do at my LYS--I felt like I was interrupting either a class or a SnB. I hope no one ever feels that way at the LYS I frequent, because it isn't a great feeling. They did however, have some neat things. My three favorites were:
1) They were having a knit along for Hey Teach and the sample was in the almost exact color of yarn I have purchased. I hope mine looks as good as the sample, which was knit superbly. It was nice to have validation on the color.
2) They had buttons you could buy by the scoop. My girls were in heaven--I bought them each a scoop ($1 scoop--they had three sizes) and they had fun poking through their buttons in the car. I should have bought a scoop for MIL as a souvenir.
3) They had opal sock yarn in the Harry Potter colors! Like I needed any more sock yarn. But I had to have the Ron and Harry colorway--oh who am I kidding I had to have Tonks too, but I only bought Ron and Harry.
All in all here is my review: nice shop, stop by if you find yourself in the area, but only if you don't mind that "I just walked into a party I wasn't invited to" feeling.