I gave up knitting in favour of reading

Okay, not exactly. I've joined a bookclub, and last month's book was a wonderfully engaging (but very long) read. Once I finished I got right back to the knitting though, and I have made decent progress on my hoodie. I just have to knit the hood and sew the whole thing together. Wheeee.

Here is the front



and the back and sleeves



I am using andean silk from knitpicks, in sangria, navy and lettuce.

Halfway There

I've halfway finished my "Good Bias" shrug. I'm taking a break now, so I can work on my hoodie.

Here is the first sleeve-

That's really it. Sorry. I never claimed to be interesting either.

neglectful blogger

i couldn't let a whole month go by without posting something. i'm typing one handed (baby in arms), which explains the lack of caps and such.

broadripple is at a standstill. too fiddly, plus aluminum needles make my hands ache.

i have about 45 rows left on the lace shrug. the first arm, that is. when i finish it, i think i'm going to give that project a break. i need to start working on my hoodie (which uses the same needle)- the yarn has been staring at me longingly making puppydog eyes-well, you know what i mean, i feel guilty.

i feel like i'm breaking some unspoken rule about leaving projects by the wayside. but at this rate i'm spending more time putting off/obsessing about/bitching about the stuff i'm bored with than knitting the stuff i like. call it short attention span, or severe over analysis. i've never claimed to be normal.

speaking of breaking rules- i went to my lys "buy-the-bag" sale, and bought 10 skeins of Eden Bamboo in mocha for 20% off- and i have no idea what to make with it. i'm a little panicked, actually. $60 and no plan??? what was i thinking???

yes, i obsess a tad. i'm backing away slowly. when i get back to this plane i'll drop another line.

Penguin Love

Now I have two.

Have you felted your penguin today?

I have. Yes, that is correct grammar. Look:



Either my knitting was too loose, or my yarn was to fine, but he had a bunch of holes where the stuffing showed through. It was making me crazy, so my son and I gave him a bath (after I carefully unstuffed him). Pinguino (thanks Dora) is recovering nicely.

For the second penguin I'm making (for the baby), I'm going to use 4.5mm instead of 4mm needles and felt him down even more. I'm loving the felted look (plus it means I can use my bamboo dpns instead of the monstrous aluminum straights).

It's a penguin

I got my order from knitpicks yesterday-



On the left is the merino style in butternut (top), cinnamon, nutmeg, storm and fog. On the right, the andean silk (which will be for "Under the Hoodie" from SnB) in sangria, lettuce, and navy.

My 2.5 year old (that's his hand on the right edge of the picture) quickly adopted the merino style, carting it around on his trike, and hugging it like it was his firstborn child. I wrestled it from him, with the promise of making him a penguin with it. And so I spend the better part of yesterday knitting, and this morning finishing, this:



He requested a brown one specifically. He gets that from his dad.

Quiz Madness!

This post is brought to you by the letter V and the colour blue ;)


You're a young knitter, just starting out. Welcome
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You appear to be a Knitting Guru. You love knitting
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is the plan, you still love the process, and
can't imagine a day going by without giving
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the never ending i-coooord

aaooaah aaooaah aaooaah

Now that you're all damning me to hell for that earworm (and if you're not, where the hell were you in the early 80s?) I have finished my booga, and I realised too late that the bag itself only takes 2 skeins, and that the third skein is to be devoted entirely to the i-cord. Well, I suppose that the idea was to have some left over. I hate leftovers. Some people hang on to them until they have enough to make a larger, multicoloured project. I could never stay organised long enough to accumulate that much noro. The little ball of noro from a sophie bag I made a year ago has just now finally been finished up (making, of all things, an i-cord for my son to play with). So as I was saying, I felt an overwhelming pressure to finish up the last skein of noro, no matter what. Once the requisite amount of i-cord was finished (5-6 feet according to the pattern), I decided to add a pocket to the inside of the bag. Actually, I added two- a medium-large pocket that will fit my wallet, and sunglasses, or other crap that tends to fall to the bottom whenever I seem to need it, and a tiny key pocket, complete with a little key loop (yet another i-cord with a snap sewn in). And there was still yarn left. Oh bother. So it was back to the strap. And I i-corded myself to death until I had about 10 feet of strap.

After all that silliness, and after felting and completing the darn thing, I think the strap is just about perfect. I can carry it with the strap crossed over my back and still reach the contents, or hanging off one shoulder and it'll just dangle at hip height. Or, if I'm carrying my full half-litre Nalgene bottle, I could swing it around and it'd make a nifty weapon. Just kidding. Sort of.

Here it is unfelted, you can see the little key pocket and loop in there:



Here is an inside view of the felted purse- oooh, pockets:



And the finished purse. I really do love it:

WIPs

Or should it be WsIP? Meh.
NAK and TOH today, so I can't be wordy, but I have a few pictures of my progress.

First, Booga bag, about 2/3 done. I am currently thinking about adding pockets when it's done, since it looks like I'll have extra yarn.



Second, the lace shrug from Interweave. I'm going back and forth between loving it and being insanely frustrated. But it's going to be gorgeous.




And a close up- because the lace is purty and I'm proud of myself.



I am mid-heel into my second BroadRipple sock. Damn aluminum needles are holding me back. I won't post a picture until they're done (as incentive, or...something?)

Mmmm...yarn

So I decided I needed a booga bag. Really, I just need a basic tote, but I also needed a good excuse to buy some Noro. So hey, booga bag kills two birds with one skein- er- stone.

And my LYS still has some mission falls cotton, and I found a shrug pattern for it (and I have been looking for a nice shrug pattern for ages)- this one is from the spring 2005 Interweave Knits. Yeah yeah, crappy picture...



It's lace knitting, using a chart. I think this will be my "challenge" project for the next little while. Because I really could use a challenge. /sarcasm

But really, isn't this yarn gorgeous?

Suddenly

I have a million ideas, and only one project. I'm really dragging my heels (no pun intended) on the broadripple socks because I hate the aluminum needles. I will look for bamboo next time I visit my parents (many many wonderful LYSs in their city), but until then, I have a million other decisions to make.

1. I want to make the lace shrug from the spring 2005 Interweave Knits. I already have 4 skeins of mission falls cotton with no project attached to them. I need to get 3 more, and hope they're the same dyelot.

2. I want to make myself a sweater for fall. I'm torn between the "Under the Hoodie" and the "Cowl" (from the Cowl and Howl set) in S'n'B. The hoodie would be more fun, I think, but the cowl would probably get more wear. But, the largest size for the cowl has a 37.5" bust, and I'm a 40 easy. It says the loose gauge results in a stretchy sweater, but just how stretchy? Hmm....

3. Once I decide on a pattern, I need to find the yarn. The hoodie calls for kid classic (not in my budget, not in my dreams)- and while I think I've found a decent replacement in Diamond Yarns Carioca, none of the colours at my LYS really inspire me. The cowl uses lamb's pride worsted, but pure wool makes me itch too much to wear a large garment, so I need a substitute in a blend- wool cotton, or cotton silk, or something else soft that will meet the gauge of the pattern.

And now I have a 15% discount at my LYS, so I feel the need to buy all the yarn I could possibly need for the next year or so at once. I'm sure that it will be more stress than it's worth.

Knitting is supposed to be fun. Someone needs to kick my ass and remind me of that.

Finished so soon?

I really thought it would take longer. The nice thing about
designing your own stuff is if you start to get bored, you can always
change things around to make them more interesting.

I'm very pleased with it. It came out a little smaller than
planned (note to self- lopi felts fast) but I think it makes a quite
dainty purse. Using words like dainty makes me feel like my
grandma. Hmmm, I don't quite know how I feel about that.

I also got to use one of the great antique buttons my MIL bought for me
in Smith Falls. I've been looking for a reason to use them for a
while now.

Before this project goes to the auction, I'm submitting it to a "Show
and Share" at my LYS. Not only do I get to have people I've never
met stroke my ego, I get a 15% discount on my next purchase. And,
it's a great way to plug the auction in my community. These women
are doing a great thing, and they deserve scads of attention and praise
for it.

Oh, and sadly, the 'V' shape of the purse is much less defined after
felting. Now it looks more like a cute little bra. No
matter- it still reminds me of V.

I'm Pulling a Purse Out Of My...

Um, yeah.

I'm not a designer by any means. I just wanted to try my hand at something semi-original. I'm going to be donating this purse to the charity auction at Sybermoms for breast cancer research, so I really want to make it special.

It's still a work in progress- we'll see where it goes from here. It's working title is the Pink "V" Purse. Not inspired by, but does remind me of, a good friend of mine.

Confession

I love seaming. Love it love it love it. It's so damn
satisfying to see all those weirdly edge stitches magically fade away
as the perfect knit stitches meld together- well- seamlessly. And
it looks so professional, even the insides. Now I'm tempted to go
take a picture of my seams, just to show off.

Here is the basically finished sweater. I have to head out to get
snaps and decorative buttons, and I still need to block it, but it's
more or less done.

Five days and...

four hundred and sixty some odd repetitons of Rhapsody in Blue, and I'm making real progress on the sweater. I'm making some progress on the sock. I remembered why I stopped making socks though. Once you get past the heel, they are really quite boring, and I have another 3 inches or so before I can decrease for the toe. And then I have to start the second one...

Friend for whom I'm making the sweater agreed on the cost, so now I can relax about that. Now I just have to worry about whether I can figure out how to sew it all together. I've never really done that before...

I think I'll stop here before I abuse any more elipses. But I do have pictures of my projects because, let's face it, that's why I started this blog- picture whoring.

The Dangers of Zen Knitting

I worked on the sweater this morning, while watching Fantasia 2000 with M. Completely zoned out watching the "Rhapsody in Blue" segment (I heart Gershwin) and knit about a half an inch too far. I had to rip back a few rows, but I only dropped about 5 stitches in the process. Wheeee.

I've finished the decreases on the heel of sock #1, now for the really boring part- knitting around and around, but every other row that pattern pops in and messes up my rhythm. Just realised I have no idea how to spell rhythm. I had to look it up. It still looks funny. And as I say it over and over in my head it's losing all meaning. Rhythm, rhythm, tartlet, tartlet, tartlet...

I'm still trying to figure out how to track rows without losing the "ticker" to the toddler. Hiding it in my cleavage seems to work for a bit, but he gets suspicious when he hears the click coming from my boobs. Hmmm, more work is requried on that one.

Sock Progress

I'm rather impressed with myself. I knit about half a sock this weekend, and I did it without entirely neglecting my kids (my housework, on the other hand...)

I discovered that M is happy to let me knit, as long as he can play with my "ticker" (my clicky row counter) or (once I actually needed the row counter to keep track) my spare ball of cascade fixation- it was still wrapped in plastic, so it didn't even get sticky. I don't know how I'll distract him once I have to start the second ball though. Baby A had a couple of very sleepy mornings, and this is what I ended up with:



I'm loving the way the colours are turning out, especially the almost polka-dot pattern on the heel (from slipping every other stitch on the knit rows). I made the leg portion shorter than the pattern suggests, because I always turn my socks down when I wear them. I hate slouchy socks. The cuff to heel is about 4 inches.

Of course, I didn't work on the sweater at all. Now I feel guilty. How do people manage several projects at once without any of them getting jealous?

What I'm Doing Now

Now that we got all those old projects out of the way- new stuff.

My current WIP (yes, I only have one, I do have a newborn) is childHood. I'm using more of the Mission Falls 1824 cotton (which my NotSoLYS lady just confirmed has been discontinued *sob*). I'm making it for the 1-year-old son of a friend of mine. I haven't discussed how much to charge for it yet. I hate that part.

So far, I'm about halfway up the back. This is the first sweater I've made with actual shaping, etc., so we'll see how it goes from here...



My WNIP (work not in progress) is a pair of Broadripple
socks. I've been waiting for a reason to buy fixation for a while now. This was the only variegated colour they had that suited me. All the others were "springy" with lavenders and pinks. I don't like pinks.


Of course, tragedy of all tragedies, neither my LYS nor my NSLYS has 3.25mm bamboo dpns. LYS lady says she is having a hard time keeping many bamboos in stock. I will have to use my slidy aluminum set of 4 (rather than 5, which will make the cuff pattern fiddly). I expect much bitching and moaning about this in days to come. Stay tuned...

Mini Poncho, and Really Mini Poncho

This is an example of my extreme silliness when it comes to making up stuff, and swatching.

I had 2 skeins of Lush (50/50 angora and wool- yummm). I decided to make a shoulder cover/mini poncho style thingy for the spring, since I love wearing tank tops, but my post-partum cleavage is bordering on indecent.

I wanted to use the whole 2 skeins, but I didn't want to run out, so I swatched a little swatch
(on my size 15s, since I wanted a very loose gauge). When I had a nice little strip, I realised I could sew it together like I would the full sized poncho, just to see.

Then I put it on one of M's dolls, just to see...


Very satisfied with that, I continued with the big one. It was more tedious than I thought it would be. Seed stitch *twitch* And I did a lot of knitting in the car, in winter, with the heat blowing on me, and I inhaled a fair bit of angora in the process. Floofy yarn *twitch*

Despite all my careful math and planning, it was too long by the time I was done. It slid right off my shoulders. Luckily, I was in Toronto visiting family at the time, and it gave me an excuse to visit Mokuba, a luscious ribbon store, currently managed by a friend of my brother. I love this place. Rows and rows of racks of ribbons, all organised by colour, size and type, it warms my little anal-retentive heart.

So I threaded some ribbon through the top edge, and now I have an adjustable poncho. I can pull it tight around my shoulders for warmth and coverage, or let it hang loose, over one shoulder, and pretend I'm stylish.

Baby Hat

A last minute project to use up some of that left-over cotton. I think I was nesting. Huh, most people use that nesting energy for cleaning. I dare to be different.

This is A at 2 days old. Everyone at once now: Awwwwwww...

Baby Blankie

I started this blankie for my (now) 7 week old, A, when I was 3 months pregnant. I bought a lot of yarn (Mission Falls 1824 cotton) because I planned on making a big blanket, much like my older son's. Paranoia about not finishing it caused me to make more of a stroller-sized blanket. So of course I have a lot of that yarn left. More on that later.

I made this with 2 strands held together (butter and ivory) on size 15 needles. It made for a very loose gauge, but I think it's pretty. Well, of course I do.

Winter Project

This was my big project from this past winter. It was also one of
my first big projects that was just for me. Yay me!

I used Classic Elite Waterspun felted merino in teal. A gorgeous
gift from a lovely person at the aforementioned message board.

The hat pattern is Coronet from knitty.com. The mittens I designed myself. I don't plan on doing that again.

The picture was taken on a bad face day, so that should explain the pose.

Kid Mittens

These are some little mittens I whipped up for my 2 year old, M, one weekend. It was cold.

I used Schoeller+Stahl Wonderwool- it was a little too floofy, and they
haven't worn very well, but he loves them, so what can I say?

What's in a name?

So for the moment, this is my knitting blog. So what's with the name?

Well, there's that cute little song- mairseydoats and doseydoats and littlelambsydivy... and also, lambs make wool, and wool makes knits, so that kind of works...

Okay, so it's just the same name I use to post at another site. So I created this blog in a fit of unbridled uncreativity- sue me. I blame the message board. It's their fault I'm here. And since I don't have their witty smilies, I'll have to settle for coming off as very severe- I refuse to punctuate with LOL.

Although, a neutral name does have a bonus- flexibility. Now I'm set if I start to want to blog other aspects of my life. Like cooking, or crappy guitar playing, or my *gasp* family!

Right now, it's about the knitting. I guess I'll start with some pictures of my FOs.