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.