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.

FO: Horcrux socks

A project that I may have never blogged about are the Horcrux socks. I finished them last night. I really liked the pattern when I saw it as a serial pattern on Susan's blog. The fingering weight pattern is available through membership to the Six Sox Knitalong.





Pattern: Horcrux socks
Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug in the Castagna colorway
Project date: May 2, 2007 through May 24, 2007
Mods: none, I was a bit concerned that the pattern called for 60 or 70 stitches, but because the pattern utilizes a k3,p2 ribbing, the socks are quite stretchy. And it fits just fine. The only I would have done differently is the heel and the heel flap. In fact, on the second sock, I did change the heel because I didn't like how the first turned out. The pattern uses a stockinette heel flap which I didn't care for, but that's a matter of personal preference. The heel (whatever it is, b/c I don't know) didn't fit my foot properly, but it's wearable. It may be just fine for others.

The yarn was really nice to work, although I was a bit worried about the yardage. Since these socks are relatively short, it worked just fine and I still had a bit of yardage left over. I could have easily made them at least 1 inch taller, but that's again a personal preference. I would think this pattern would be good for those yarns with low yardage, such a Koigu or Colinette. I followed the pattern initially b/c I really didn't think about how tall it was, but it's not too short, but I'd prefer it be a *smidge* taller.

I think I'm falling a bit too tough for these merino handpainted sock yarns. I do worry about them wearing out and the lack of nylon, but I really do have plenty of hand knitted socks with nylon. Some of the handpainted sock yarns I have purchased are also wool/nylon mix, so I'm not buying all 100% merino sock yarn, but it is very nice to knit with, that's for sure.

It's been all about socks lately. The bigger projects, such as the CE Raglan Cardi *cough cough* is giving me fits and isn't working so well right now.

A Whole Lotta Randomness About Me

Hmm, I seem to have been tagged by several people for variations of the same meme. Andrea, Susan, Kim, and Pooch.

The premise is to post 7 or 8(depending on the version of the meme)random facts and then tag others. Well, I'm going to already go against the rules and not tag anyone else because it's taken me about 1.5 weeks to get to this, so if anyone wants to do it, feel free, if not, oh well.

I debated for awhile if I would even do this meme, as I tend to never get around to doing them, but then figured what the heck.

1. While I am childfree (lifting this from Beth's tag post) and have never had delusions of having children, although when I was in college I thought I might adopt, my partner has 3 kids and one lives with us. No biological children, but now I bear the moniker of "stepmom". How ironic.

2. My father died when I was two years old. I was born in St. Louis, Missouri where my mom met and married my father, when she moved to St. Louis to go to nursing school. I later returned to St. Louis to attend college. Life is cyclical, is it not?

3. I never met relatives on my father's side until I was 17, almost 18. He has several brothers and sisters (Grandma was a Rolling Stone) and there are still 2 uncles I have yet to meet, one is in jail for life and the other in TX.

4. No one in my family knits, except for me. My grandmother was a skilled seamstress and quilter. It wasn't until she died that I learned that she crocheted as well. Another of my aunts also crocheted, but doesn't any longer. I also grew up in the South, so knitting wasn't as popular as crochet tends to me in milder climates.

5. M comes from a family of 8 siblings, where I have only one sibling (but two stepbrothers who didn't live with us, if that counts). My mother comes from a family of 6 siblings, all female. Could you imagine if I began pro-creating? I leave it to my sister to be the fecund one.

6. Growing up, I was a voracious reader. I had dreams of living abroad and a life full of travel. While in college, I spent a semester abroad living in Leiden, The Netherlands and loved every minute of it. While there, I traveled to Barcelona, Madrid, Granada, Cordoba, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Antwerp, Brussels, Paris, Gibraltar and Morocco.

7. Every year I mail out Christmas cards. My Xmas card list in years past was over 150+. This past year was the first year that it was just about 100. Over the years I've lost touch with some friends and then with the addition of M's large family, there's a lot of cards that need to go out.

8. I am considering a Master's in Political Science and I have no idea what I will do that. But yet, I still want to pursue it. After leaving school without fulfilling my Bachelor's, I never thought I would go back to it. Again, life =cycle.

9. Are you tired of my randomness? It's not as easy as one might think, unless you're way more random than me. My sister and I are like night and day, completely different people. As we get older, we both seem to appreciate the differences a bit more. There is also a 6 year difference in age between the both of us and I am the oldest. Can you tell?

10. Even though I love meeting new people, internally I am actually shy. Those that have met me IRL would probably tend to disagree. I have to muster up energy to be more outgoing than I am. When I go to a party where I barely know anyone, I tend to stay in my corner and talk to whomever I know. And if someone talks to me then I talk, otherwise I stay in the corner. Pretty funny that dichotomy, huh?

I'm sure there's more randomness, but that's all I can muster up for now.


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To the other half of the meme business, this is one I've wanted to do, more for me than others.

Bold for stuff you've done, italics for stuff you plan to do eventually and normal for stuff you don't intend to do

Afghan
I-cord
Garter stitch
Knitting with metal wire
Shawl
Stockinette stitch
Socks: top-down
Socks: toe-up
Knitting with camel yarn
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Hat
Knitting with silk

Moebius band knitting
Participating in a KAL
Sweater
Drop stitch patterns-Clapotis, anyone?
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Slip stitch patterns
Knitting with banana fiber yarn
Domino knitting
Twisted stitch patterns
Knitting with Bamboo yarn
Two end knitting
Charity knitting
Knitting with soy yarn—soy blend
Cardigan
Toy/Doll clothing
Knitting with circular needles
baby items
Knitting with your own handspun yarn
Slippers-Fuzzy Feet, yes?
Graffitti knitting
Continental Knitting
Designing knitted garments
Cable stitch patterns (incl. Aran)

Lace patterns
Publishing a knitting book
Scarf
Teaching a child to knit
American/English knitting (as opposed to continental)
Knitting to make money
Buttonholes
Knitting with Alpaca
Fair Isle Knitting
Norwegian knitting
Dying with plant colors
Knitting items for a wedding

Household items (dishcloths, washcloths, tea cosies...)
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items) on two circulars
Olympic knitting
Knitting with someone else's handspun yarn

Knitting with dpns
Holiday related knitting
Teaching a male to knit
Bobbles
Knitting for a living
Knitting with cotton
Knitting smocking
Dyeing yarn
Steeks
Knitting art
Knitting two socks (or other small tubular items) on two circulars simultaneously-Why??
Fulling/felting

Knitting with wool
Textured Knitting
Kitchener Bind Off
Purses/bags

Knitting with beads

Swatching
Long Tail CO-that's what I use the most!
Entrelac
Knitting and Purling Backwards
Machine knitting
Knitting with self-patterning/self-striping/variegated yarn-umm, can you say socks!!
Stuffed Toys
Baby items
Knitting with Cashmere
Darning
Jewelry
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Writing a pattern

Gloves-tried them once and didn't care for them
Intarsia
Knitting with Linen

Knitting for preemies
Tubular CO
Freeform knitting
Short rows
Cuffs/fingerless mits/armwarmers
Pillows
Knitting a pattern from an online knitting magazine
Rug
Knitting on a loom
Thrummed knitting
Knitting a gift

Knitting for pets-just wrong
Shrug/Bolero/Poncho
Knitting with dog/cat hair-even more wrong
Hair accessories
Knitting in public-all the time

Such A Great Time

was had on my trip to Boston to visit a dear friend, Cyn. I didn't actually do a lot of sightseeing, but I was pretty tired, so I wanted to take it easy.

We headed to the NH Sheep & Wool Festival on Saturday. It was great fun and much bigger than Estes, although I was told that this was small and that Rhinebeck and Maryland Sheep and Wool are much bigger.

A bit of shopping was done there, as well as at Windsor Button. I also had the opportunity to meet old friends, as well as new ones. Absolutely tons of fun. Cyn was the guide and helped to make sure that we both hit up all the vendors.

At the wool fest, my wool haul was:


(from l to r)
2 skeins of Spirit Trail Fiberworks in aqua and a yellow-gold color, 2 skeins of Nature's Palette in a Zinfandel colorway purchased from Carolina Homespun, Fox Sox Yarn from Foxfire Fiber in the Loon colorway and lastly, a skein of variegated sock yarn from Judy at Ball and Skein.

Shopping at Windsor Button netted me the following:


2 skeins of Claudia's Handpaint in colorway Ingrid's Blues and 2 skeins of Lang Jawoll in a solid blue color.

The real gem of the day at Windsor Button was a skein of Handmaiden Sea Silk in the midnight colorway.




That's all for now. I'm tired of linking to everything. More later with actual knitting!