Vacation Knitting

While I was on vacation, it wasn't all hanging out with the Neph and acquiring yarn. There was some knitting happening too, just not as much as I expected, but that's ok too. It was my vacation.

First up is the almost finished Ballet Camisole. In the picture, you see that it is awaiting a 3 needle bindoff. However, that has occurred and it's been shipped off to my favorite crocheter to give it a single crochet edge around the neckline and armholes. This was a fun knit and I learned short rows, bonus! The pattern didn't call for it, but Lise on Ravelry told me the only thing she would change would be to add short rows and thus I decided it was time for me to get over it and add them to this project.

After much searching online for various tutorials, it wasn't as hard as I thought! Yay!



Second, the Cafe Curtain socks are coming along, but they are not quite as fun to knit as other patterns. It is a beautiful pattern, but either I'm not into it as much as say Monkey or Thuja or I don't know. I like it and think that I want to finish it, but with the Summer of Socksalready started, this sock will be put down for awhile, to focus on new socks. Not that my goal for SOS is any huge number, but I'm not too motivated by this one right now.



Lastly, DFS looks even bigger than this right now. I'm on the last repeat of the shawl. I'm following the scarf pattern as I have 500 yds and the shawl version calls for 750 yards. I've decided to add one repeat to the pattern to see where I am yardage-wise. Right now, it looks good to add one additional repeat, but I haven't decided if I will go beyond that. I know another person that recently made this said the edging used up a lot of yarn and I really would rather not repeat running out of yarn on a shawl (Seraphim anyone?).



The Opal socks are still being knit on, but I'm a bit disappointed with them right now. It turns out I knitted the second sock on the wrong size needles, so the fabric is a bit looser than I prefer. I thought of ripping it out, but I do have one finished sock. However, I did a lot of wrong things on this pair of socks and I'd like for them to just be finished. I made the cuff much longer than I usually like, so now it's so long, calf shaping should have been added. Basically it's either rip and redo or finish what I've got. I'm with option B at this point, simply because while these socks are not perfect, they can be used as work socks. Because I always get cold and in the summer/spring, early fall, wearing either mules, clogs or open-toed shoes, my feet get cold. Nothing like wool socks to keep those toesies warm! Plodding along, I will get these finished, just because I'm sick of them. And then I can cast on for my Sockapalooza pal's sock. I really do need to get started on them.

That's all for now.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Back from the ATL! Yay. I'm happy to be back home and getting settled into my regular routine again.

The trip was great. I had a great time seeing the world's cutest nephew! (ok, he's my nephew, so he's exceedingly cute, but obviously doesn't negate other people's relatives and such). I was such a bad auntie, totally forgot my camera (camnesia strikes again). I guess that's what happens when you're packing at the last minute, something was bound to be forgotten.

I had a chance to bond with my nephew and he calls me "Tee Tee Wand-er(apparently getting that -da on the end of my name is difficult for him). It's close enough and I'll take it. I think it was hardest to leave him, than my mom and sister.

We ended up not going to Louisiana for my aunt's wedding anniversary, for various reasons, and hung out in Atlanta instead. We went to the Atlanta Zoo for an event sponsored through my sister's job, as well as heading out to Six Flags over Georgia with my sister, late last Sunday evening to get in a few rides before the park closed.

I did seek out a yarn store. Pixie was kind enough to let me know that Knitch was the store to visit. I managed to get myself there, driving through Atlanta's crazy traffic,, and hung out there for a few hours. It was a nice store and everyone was extremely friendly and helpful. I found there were other knitters from out-of-state that stopped in to the store and they were equally friendly with everyone. I guess because I hung out so long, one customer came up to me to ask my opinion and later on asked me if I worked there and I had to tell her no. It was pretty funny.

Of course I could not leave empty-handed, a colorway of Claudia's Handpaint, Caribbean Blue, was so beautiful, I had to have it. A couple of Blue Sky Alpacas patterns and a little something for my Coffee Swap pal, that will not be pictured here.



Hmm, and a little yarn to make this:


(yarn courtesy of Michael's -sale for $4/skein, definitely a deal)

That's it for now. Back later with knitting progress on those WIPs.

bloglines test

This is a test of the Bloglines feed service, this is only a test. Since stupid Bloglines isn't updating my feed, I'm trying this in the hopes it will pick it up.

Tivoli modeled

Dear Readers,
Perhaps you might remember last fall when I showed a finished Tivoli, that I did not model that Tivoli. Partly b/c when I finished it, we had unseasonable or fall weather, so it was too cool to wear and then I wasn't sure how it would fit.

It is now the season for it and I wore it a few weeks ago and was quite pleased with it. Thought I'd just throw up a modeled pic for you. All projects specs are shown on the link above.



And in case you're living under a rock, something I failed to mention is that Claudia is once again riding in the Multiple Sclerosis 150 Bike Ride. Every year Claudia and her husband tandem bike ride and raise money for MS. She also gives away fabulous prizes that many donate. For each $10 you contribute, you get one chance towards winning a prize. If you have not seen the prizes, they are here.

Tomorrow is the race, go ahead and donate if you haven't already. You can do so through Claudia's Blog by Paypal or through the MS Society page.

I'll be back this weekend with another update.

FOs to share

I kept meaning to post sooner, but was thwarted at every turn. I took pictures and then my camera battery died on me while downloading photos. Of course, it was before work, so I didn't have time to wait for the batteries to charge up again. And yesterday, I really wanted to post, but this pesky last minute packing slowed me down.

Yes, I said packing. I am in Atlanta visiting my mom, sister and nephew and I'm excited to be here. Even though, of course, I am missing Estes, *sigh*. The sacrifices one makes.

Anyhow, I finally finished seaming those two baby raglan sweaters. If you can believe it, I knit both sweaters in a period of 4 days. The pattern knits up very quickly and I think it's quite cute, but all of the ends it provides, that and the fact that I added a stripe on the sleeves and the body, just means more ends to weave in. Once I sat down and made myself work on it on Saturday evening and Sunday, it was done. Well, both of them are done. The smaller one in blue was made for a co-worker whose baby was just born (in early April), but now I fear it is too small, so I gifted that coworker with the baby burp cloths.





Baby Raglan sweater from Debbie Bliss' The Baby Knits Book
completion: started mid April '07, finished seaming mid-June (very sad I know)
Yarn used: Cotton-Ease in Cherry Red & Licorice, Candy Blue and Licorice
Size needle: US 7 (4.5 mm)
Modifications: adding striping. In the future, I will have my friend Susan help me modify this pattern to a bottom-up raglan, so I can eliminate some ends. I don't mind seaming a sweater, but on this pattern, it really seems unnecessary to have quite so many seams and so much bulk created by all those ends. I love using Cotton-Ease for baby knits, especially when it comes from my stash too!

Lately I've been on a bit of a dishcloth bender. Some of you may recall that in February, I mentioned that I had a bit o' dishcloth cotton stash. I also mentioned starting a goal of knitting one dishcloth a week. Well that goal never really worked out, but I have still been knitting with the dishcloth cotton as time permits. I love knitting up the variegated ones and watching the colors emerge. After stressful days at work, it's nice to me to knit up a simple garter stitch diagonal eyelet dishcloth. I also love to see a stack of them in my linen closet and know that I made those for our home. Mostly I don't see a need to put up tons of the same type of dishcloth over and over again on the blog, but I found a blogger who has some great dishcloth patterns. She has a series of dishcloth patterns that she called Geometric Lace, with parallelograms, squares, circles and triangle patterns. For some reason, I felt the need to save all of these patterns and I knit the parallelogram dishcloth. Although I do have plans to knit the triangles and squares too. They are fun.



Of the cotton stash I acquired last year (16 skeins), I'm down now to 2. Of course 2 weeks ago, I picked up about 3 or 4 more, but overall, my dishcloth cotton stash is way down. And I do have plans to make more baby burp cloths too. I even knit dishcloths out of my many yards of scraps! I think these are great stress relievers for me to knit and we do use them in our house.

Enough with the dishcloth talk. Not much is going on. I'm in ATL for a week, so I'm going to try to post a couple more times, we'll see how it goes. Have a Happy Weekend and oh, go wish my friend, Stacey a Happy Birthday!

A Quick Hello

Took a brief blog hiatus without really meaning to, but not feeling like I have much to say. I've got the blog blahs. Just lots of things happening lately and never enough time. Still knitting like a crazy woman, though.

M2 graduated from 8th grade this past weekend and lots of fun and festivities for him. M and I gratefully left him with a friend's parents after the graduation to transport him and a friend to a school-sponsored event at a local amusement park. We headed out to the People's Fair to walk around, check out the local vendors and eat bad fair food. It was great to spend the rest of the day together. Our lives have been so busy lately that we haven't had the us time, so it was good.

I planned on writing a post telling you how I was going to take a blog break for awhile. As I thought about what all I was going to say, I realized that for all of that wordiness, I could have just typed a blog post and throw up some pics of my knitting in progress. Whew, I'm sure you're all relieved.

Knitting-wise, I never relayed what happened with the Classic Elite cardi. I picked up too many stitches around the underarm and had a "bulge" under the arm which was not noticeable until I tried on the sweater with one sleeve on. It looked ridiculous, but at the time, I didn't know what was wrong with it and thought I might have to rip and reknit. Which would happen, but I was in no hurry to get to it. My friend Susan looked at it and let me know that I would need to pickup less stitches and reknit the sleeves over, but that wasn't so bad. However, as the weather has been getting hotter, I'm less enthused about knitting a wool cardigan. it's on hold till fall.

On to spring knitting, I've cast on for the Ballet Camisole using Shine Sport in Crocus.



On to socks, I've cast on a pair for myself using a most delightful pattern. I'm using new sock yarn purchased at the NHS&W from Spirit Trail Fiberworks.


A co-worker was expecting a baby and I wanted to knit something, but not a big something. Mason-Dixon knitting came to the rescue with baby burp cloths. Not something that was too over the top and was just perfect. I like the baby bibs but don't like sewing on buttons. Let's face it, I'm lazy and getting the buttons might take me much longer than the actual knitting. There's a lot to finishing I don't love and I have to feel like doing it when I feel like it.
These were done over the Memorial Day weekend out of Lily Sugar 'N Cream cotton.



I've got yarn on the needles for my Sockapalooza pal, but haven't started them yet. Still have to figure out the right pattern.

I might still be incognito for awhile. Just handling lots of different things right now. Also spending a bit too much time getting set up on Ravelry too.