Those pictures I promised...

I finally pulled out my camera tonight. This is my owls sweater. I just started the short rows to dip the yoke, so I guess I'm about 65% done with it. This is for a KAL, and I have until Thanksgiving to finish it. I think I can do it, even though the striping pattern in the yarn is driving me crazy.

I got a hold of some of Tempted's Luxe yarn. It is a cashmere blend! The colorway is Emergency. I love it. I'm going to make a pair of fingerless gloves for myself.

As you may know, I am participating in the Wendyknits KAL. You knit a pair of socks in a month and they draw a random person out of those who finished to receive prizes. I won this skein of J.knits sock yarn for my August Seaweed socks. I'm not sure what socks I'm going to make with it yet.

I've decided to make a mystic light shawl, and I have 3 skeins of Tempted bad grrl to make it with. Isn't it pretty? There's blue and red in it, overdyed with chestnut. I really want to start the shawl, but I need to finish my girasole first.

Finally, here are my mock cable socks. I can safely say that these are for my mom for Christmas since she doesn't read my blog anyway.

I'm such a bad blogger...

I've knit a lot on several different projects recently, but I never seem to remember my camera before it gets dark outside. I've wanted to try taking more pictures during the day so that the colors come out better.

I stayed the weekend at Tempted's house (again) with her sister Muriel to help her get ready to post the Stacy Shawl kits on her etsy store. Wendyknits designed a shawl and knit it using 2 skeins of Tempted Luxe. This is the link to Wendy's post, this is the link to Stacy's post (last 2 posts), and here's the link to the etsy store. The shawl is so pretty and the yarn is the softest evah! (Psst-its cashmere!) Several of my friends are already knitting it or will be shortly.

I did get a lot of knitting time in. I managed to work on my Girasole, but Stacy had to help me a lot. Anyway, here is a picture of Muriel and I holding our shawls. She seems to think that she will catch up with me, but she is sadly mistaken lol.

I'm finally out of the insanity that is chart D. It is just a 4 stitch pattern repeat, but I really should have been using stitch markers. That's part of the reason Stacy had to help me so much.

I'm over halfway done with the Owls sweater, and I've started the Mock Cable socks for the Oct. KAL. They will eventually be a christmas present for my mom.

My Owls sweater

Here's my owls sweater to date:

I'm finally getting somewhere! I originally started it with some alpaca worsted, but I don't think the yarn is really worsted weight (it was bought from a local farm in Lancaster, Pa). So, I changed to Paton's Classic wool. Then, I had the opportunity to procure several skeins of Malabrigo worsted in my favorite color. I started over for the third time (making the s/m 36" version). Then, I realized the pattern called for bulky weight yarn. So I started over for the 4th time, this time making the 38" M size. Everything was going fine and dandy until I realized I had done the waist decreases at the wrong stitch marker, which led to another frogging. Now I've made up all of my backwards progress, and am finally making some headway. I just hope it fits.

Knit with care

Trilobite socks: frogged. Lace Leaf scarf: frogged. Owls sweater: frogged about 30 rows. All within 24 hours. Do you see a trend here? 2 were intentional, the owls frogging was not. Well, it was, but the mistake that prompted the frogging was not. I apparently cannot distinguish the difference between marker A and marker B, and had done several decrease rows at the wrong marker.

But back to the frogging. It makes me scared to knit on anything I like. I want to make some serious progress on my Girasole, but a frogging there would be catastrophic (and would likely be a tinking just because I'm scared to partially frog lace). Hopefully this theme to my knitting will end soon.

Heh.

See that sock one post down? I frogged it when I was maybe 2 rows away from being finished. I like the pattern, but I wasn't pleased with my interpretation. It was too big, and I screwed it up a few times. Also, I'm moody, and the frogging was therapeutic. Took all of 2 minutes.

Quick update

I'm knitting like crazy on my trilobite socks. The KAL deadline is 11:59pm on Sept 30, which is next Wednesday. This is the first sock, and I'm about halfway through the gusset. I think its possible to finish, and I'm not going to skimp on the leg (it'll be at least 4" long). The crazy part is that I started the darn things last week. I always wait until the last minute!

Finished the socks & stash building

I finally finished DH's Diamond Gansey socks. He wanted ankle socks, so I only did 1 pattern repeat on the leg before I started the ribbing. He seems to like them, and I've heard that once you wear hand-made socks you'll never go back to store-bought socks again. I want more yarn, so I really hope its true lol.

PS-My aunt knit that blanket DH has his feet on. I love it.

This weekend, one of the girls decided to do some stash-busting. I came home with 6 skeins of worsted-weight malabrigo (its blue!!). It is destined to become my owls sweater (I benched the Patons on this one).
I also grabbed some cute (also blue) sock yarn, but I don't remember the brand. I may have been drunk when I purchased it lol-I'll post a pic when I figure out what it is.

ETA: I think it is KPPPM

:)

I think this was the best weekend I've had in recent history. I usually get a tension headache every day, and I haven't had one since Friday. I am so ridiculously relaxed! Wonderful! I'll post pics of yarny goodness tomorrow. I made a new friend and became closer to 3 others.

So.freaking.excited

I am going to spend the weekend with some friends at Tempted's house! We're going to knit, dye yarn, and have tons of fun. I'm afraid this work day is going to take forever! I'll be leaving with my friend Muriel around 3-4ish, and my knitting friend Courtney will meet us up there. Wooot! Catch ya'll on the flip side.

Whew! I survived camping with my in-laws

My DH is Native American (Choctaw tribe). Every year, we camp out with his family at the Choctaw Labor Day Festival, and this year was no different. Hanging out with the in-laws for 4 days can be a bit rough though, so I took 5 knitting projects with me. I am a relatively new knitter, and the only time they've seen me knit was at Christmas last year while I was trying to finish a scarf for my mom.

Before I even left, I decided that some new yarn was a great way to make the weekend better. So, after knitting at SWAK, I bought some brand new yarn. It is bright red, but my camera decided not to capture the true color. I'll have to try again. The yarn is Knitty Bits 2 Sock yarn, and I'm unsure of the colorway. It is likely destined to be Trilobite socks.

I finished Fred's Owlings mittens a few weeks ago, but I wanted to make sure she got them before I showed them off. She did managed to guess what I was making and therefore got to see them, but she didn't see the finished product complete with seedbead eyes until she opened the box today.

I gave up on trying to finish the diamond gansey socks before the KAL for August ended. I actually could have finished them in time if I hadn't forgotten about them for a week or so while I was distracted by other pretty projects. DH specifically requested ankle socks, so while I don't think it is very attractive for this pattern, I only put 1 pattern repeat on the leg before starting the ribbing. I have one sock finished, but I don't have a picture of it yet. Here is a progress pic from this weekend (I had Wendyknits' book Socks from the Toe-Up spiral bound at Kinkos to make using it easier):

All in all, it was a good weekend. My main fear was being taken advantage of and being used as a babysitter, but I only had to keep the 1 month old nephew alive for 5 minutes while one of DH's nieces took two more kids to the bathroom. I am happy to report that I even touched the kid's arm and nothing bad happened lol. That is progress.

My favorite comment from his family regarding my knitting came from my FIL: "Are you still doing that?" My reply was a faux-cheerful, "Yes."

Lesson learned

I would like to share a lesson I learned yesterday. I use an iPhone app for a project row counter, and it currently has 7 projects listed. I took my diamond gansey socks to the LYS last night. I opened the project counter for the socks, and started knitting. My counter said I should start on row 6. I noticed that the diamonds didn't look quite right, but I was experiencing an awesome sugar high and didn't think anything of it (a mtn dew and a jelly-filled donut, if you're wondering).

Finally, I admit that something is wrong. Diamonds don't normally have 6 points. I had copied the chart for the socks into excel so that I didn't have to carry the book around, and I figured that I simply copied the chart incorrectly and that I am incapable of reading said chart. After knitting 2 rows, I carefully frogged the pattern rows back to the beginning (that's about 7 rows), only to realize that I had opened the project for Fred's surprise project instead of the diamond gansey project. I started knitting row 6 when I should have been knitting row 8.

Lesson: If you're going to use technology to make knitting easier, at least make sure you open the right project or you'll get to do unnecessary frogging.

Big update

In case you haven't noticed, I tend to post in spurts. I'll post 2 or 3 days in a row, and then accidentally let a week slip by without a peep. I figured someone would want an update, so I'll give it you. You'd think I'd be smart and spread the progress report over a few posts.

First up is the elefante for Fred's D. I've been done with her for over a month, but have been procrastinating on doing the eyes and tail. I finished on Saturday.

Details:

Yarn: Berroco Comfort

Pattern: Elefante by Susan Anderson

Since I like D, I thought she'd like some booties too.

Details:

Pattern: Saartje's Bootees (link goes to blog-pattern on right)

Yarn: Koigu Painter's Palette Premium Merino (KPPPM) in P713.

Next up is a secret I'm making for Fred. Since I'm a tad bit evil, I'm going to post a teaser. If you know what it is, don't ruin the secret.

In the last post, I said that I had decided to join a cabled sweater KAL (rav link, tempted link). This is my progress to date. I had originally decided to use the worsted weight alpaca that I bought on vacation, but when I swatched, the yarn is possibly not worsted. So, I'll just use up my paton's classic wool instead.

Details:

Pattern: Owls by Kate Davies (rav link)

Yarn (for now): Patons Classic Wool

The second sock pattern of the Wendyknits Socks from the Toe-Up KAL is the Diamond Gansey socks. I busted my butt to get the first pair of the month done, and it kinda looks like I'm not going to finish this one by next Monday. But, alas, they are for my DH and I'll finish them anyway, eventually.

Details:

Pattern: Diamond Gansey Socks

Yarn: Tempted Good Grrl in Moonlight

I've really slowed down on knitting the girasole, but I'll throw in a progress picture anyway.

Finally, this is what 2 mini schnauzers look like when you neglect grooming. I'm going to have to do it sometime this week before they go to their grandma's house for labor day weekend.

What is the deal?

Just today, I've CO a secret project and I was "convinced" to join a cabled sweater KAL. This has to stop! I won't tell you much about the secret project beyond the fact that it uses this Cascade 220 yarn:

For the KAL, I'm going to do the Owls sweater. I had planned to save that for the YH's knitting Olympics in February, but I have another sweater in mind. I'm going to use this yarn:

Sheesh.

I just keep CO

Since I finished those socks, I have CO a scarf and the diamond gansey socks (rav link) for DH. I'm using Lorna's laces (colorway is Franklin's Panopticon) for the scarf and Tempted Good Grrl (link goes to my stash-colorway Moonlight) for the socks.

Here's the scarf so far:

Please forgive the stoned look on the visible part of my face. Its is 2:30am CST after all.

Almost made it

I almost made it. I ended up knitting the ribbing on the cuff of the second sock, binding off, and sewing in ends in my mom's living room yesterday. I made a mistake and did an extra pattern repeat in the gusset of the second sock, making it about o.5" longer than the other. Luckily, Mom said one of her feet is longer than the other because of arthritis in her toes. Guess that worked out well.

The details:

• Cast on: 8-1-09 @ 7pm CST using Judy’s magic CO. I CO 22 sts and did 3 increase rows before starting the increase pattern in the pattern.
• Finished: 8-9-09 @ 5:30pm CST in my mom’s living room. lol.
• Heel: slip stitch
• Bind off: sewn bind off
• Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in Oxblood
• Needles: US Size 2 dpns
• Size made: Medium

Birthday socks progress

I have had a minimum of sleep over the past week. We are not going to mom's house until Sunday, so I'll have an extra day to knit (thank God!). I was up until 4am knitting this morning.

Sock update

I've finished the heel on the first sock. I hope to have the majority of the leg done tonight, if not all of it. Either way, the goal is to CO the second one tomorrow. It took me until 3:30 am to finish the heel. Thank god for Hulu! I watched 1 episode of family guy, 3 episodes of Cities of the Underground, and 2 episodes of Biography while I knit. I didn't start until 8pm last night-I think I'm going to start earlier tonight.

Guess what! I started a new pair of socks.

I want to make my mom a pair of socks for her birthday, and the Seaweed socks seem to fit the bill. They're the free pattern for this month's KAL, and I have some pretty maroon yarn that fits the bill. Here are the catches:

1) Mom's birthday is a week from Monday (Aug 10). This means I have to have them done by next Saturday.

2) The maroon yarn is Madelinetosh.

I'm going to try to do it. Chances are decent that I'll be finishing them in the car on the way to her house (its a 2.5 hour drive). I went to a minor league baseball game tonight, so here is my progress to date:

Fingers crossed that I finish them.

Girasole update

Here is my girasole to-date. I love it! Working on this shawl/blanket has seriously slowed down my knitting on other projects. However, I only have ~1/3 of a ball of yarn left, and Tempted very kindly offered to dye more for me. So, I'm slowing down on the shawl so I won't get into a situation where I want to knit on it and don't have any yarn to do so.

Death of a Sock

I've been knitting on the Nanners socks, and I don't like them. Don't get me wrong, I like the pattern, and separately, I like the yarn (Brooks Farm Acero), but I don't like them together. I haven't been able to really get into this project (the Girasole aka time-suck may have something to do with that). Therefore, I have decided to frog it, and to document the death of a sock.

Act 1: The Sock is fooled into thinking that this is just a regular picture day.

Act 2: The sock is worried, but still hopeful that perhaps this is just a minor frogging.

Act 3: The sock begins to beg for mercy.

Act 4: The end is neigh.

Act 5: The sock takes its last breath...

Act 6: The end.

My apologies to Arthur Miller. I don't know anything about Death of A Salesman, but chances are very good that I butchered any resemblances.

I needed a bit of a mental break from everything, and as a consequence, I haven't knit since Tuesday. I have grand plans to maybe stay up all night knitting or at least knit all day tomorrow while DH goes to a powwow, so maybe I'll have some progress pics soon. Sorry for the boredom on here.

Gah, I suck at blogging

Ok, I suck at posting progress pics. But all I've really worked on lately is the girasole (I vote for a new definition of girasole-it should read "time suck"). I was going to do both pairs of socks in the KAL this month, and I'm barely halfway through the first Nanners sock. How about a pic of that? I have it in front of me, and I'm at work..... ok, here's a pic:

Yup, that's all I've got for today. There is a sale at my favorite yarn store tomorrow (SWAK), and my DH has decided we are going to a powwow in Tulsa tomorrow. Sooooo, he's only given me 30 mins to shop. That's not nearly enough time, but I've already scouted the store to locate what I want in the hopes of getting out of there in time with the yarn I want. I won't tell you what I'm eyeing because this blog shows up on Ravelry. Gotta keep it a secret lol.

I have my computer back!

A project update will follow soon, assuming I can pull myself away from the computer long enough to take pics.

Quick girasole pic

Its posing as a hat. :) My computer had to go to the Apple store hospital on Tuesday (the screen went out), and isn't expected to released for 5-7 days from last Wednesday. Its been rough. :\

Girasole progress

I'm moving right along with the Girasole. I had to transfer it from a 24" cable to a 32" cable (I have the Knitpicks harmony interchangeables). I just finished row 7 of chart C, for those of you who are doing it too. I know it may not be obvious to some of you, but I love blue. I really really love this color blue lol.

Nanners

Here is today's progress on the Nanner socks. I still don't love the yarn, but I think I'll be able to live with it.

Who knew yarn can be hot?

I'm knitting the Nanner socks with Brooks Farms Acero. It is 60% wool, 20% silk, and 20% viscose. It is making my hands sweat to knit with it. Odd, no? Well, here is a pic of the pretty pretty yarn.

Decisions, decisions

I can cast on my next pair of socks at midnight (3.5 hours from now, but I doubt I'll stay up lol). There are 2 sock patterns per month (1 from the book, 1 free). This month, they are:

Free pattern: The nanner socks:

Pattern from the book: The On-Hold Socks (rav link):

I don't know which one I want to do first. I fully intend to do both. I'm also having trouble picking out a yarn. I have a blue one that I can use; but again, I don't know which pattern to do it with.

So, which pattern do you guys think I should do first?

The socks are done!

I am finished! Well, except for the blocking. I have to wait for my sock blockers to come in the mail (I'm hoping they'll be here Monday). This is the first pair of socks from the Ravelry Socks from the Toe-Up knit a long (KAL). The socks are a tad bit looser than what I like, so I am giving them to my best friend. Here are the details:

Needles: Size 3 dpns

Pattern: Wendy's Lacy Rib Socks (rav link) from her Socks from the Toe-Up book

Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh Sock, colorway Pool (not happy with the yarn btw)

Toe: Judy's Magic Cast-on, CO 20 sts and did 3 increase rows before increasing as indicated in the pattern.

Heel: Slip-stitch heel

Started: June 4, 2009

Finished: June 27, 2009 (I was distracted by other projects)

Project notes: Pattern very easy to memorize; is very stretchy! Go down a needle size or 2. I made the small size, but they fit my bff's medium sized feet.

Talk about being a follower

I've fallen in love with the Girasole by Jared Flood (his blog is brooklyn knits-link to post). Wendy has done it, and I have several friends planning it or doing it. Most of the projects on ravelry are done either in fingering weight yarn (for a shawl) or in worsted (for a blanket). I want something in-between, so I've thought of finding a nice DK weight yarn to use. If I do use worsted, it will likely be Cascade Eco wool, and if I use fingering, it will probably be Tempted (she's also doing a girasole). I don't like shawls though. However, one of the knitting gurus at the LYS is doing it in fingering weight, and I really liked it. I'd mentally envisioned this blanket as being a future baby blanket, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Lol, I just bought the pattern, so I may be in a bit of trouble if I find the perfect yarn any time soon.

Almost done!

My little elefante is only lacking eyes and a tail. I've been a little lax on posting pics, so I've posted some below.

The feet bore a fun resemblance to cupcakes.

The feet and the body.

Fast forward almost a week...... nearly finished! If I make this again, I will NOT crochet the ears as per the directions. I can surely knit something easier than it was to crochet them.

I kinda sorta sewed the head on crooked, so I'm going to have to sew the eyes in so that the elefante is looking to the side. I'm not sure how I'm going to do that, so I'll probably set her down until SnB on Wednesday.

The elefante has a head

The elefante has a head! My pic is a bit misleading though-its not really attached to the body. I still have to crochet the ears. I tried tonight, but it was so tight that I was damaging my fingers. I'm going to wait until I relax a bit.

Elefante butt

Progress check on the elefante! I have sewn in the ends on the legs (I didn't want to "finalize" sewing on the legs until I got all of them on there and it looked ok) and started the trunk.

lol, my finger hurts again. I really should wear a bandaid on it until it recuperates.

Ouch.

This is somewhat hilarious, but I knit too much last night. I finished the body for the elefante and attached 2 legs. The tip of my index finger on my left hand is beet red and sensitive. I just tried to knit a row on the sock and it hurt too much to do any more. I am officially a weenie.

Pic from WWKIP

Here is the picture from the world wide knit in public day event in Tulsa yesterday. Stacy of Tempted Yarns (website, Etsy store) took the picture. Left to Right: Logan and his socks for his dad (blog), Cody with a skein of Tempted (I want to say the colorway is Sherwood, but don't hold me to that, and Cody is blogless), and me holding the first of my lacy ribs socks.