knitting swatches

after a lazy weekend of knitting and ripping(did I mention that I don't follow directions well?)I started knitting my swatches for my finishing classI am using the caron simply soft brites, mangoit's very soft, and I am so in love with the color, I'm thinking of knitting a sweater with it - it's SO crazy - it would look cute with dark blue jeans

addicted to cables

I feel like I'm beginning a new era in my knitting experienceI got my knitware software - which will make my constant use of different yarns for patterns easierI'm taking my finishing class on Friday - I am SO excitedand I completed my first cardigan with cables - the sleeves are PERFECT...I'm already searching for new patterns with cables!I'm 2/3 finished with the back of my brown and blue striped sweaterafter the class, I will have two projects to practice seaming with!the day after the class is the yarn lady's bag sale - I am going through serious yarn buying withdrawal - every day I find myself searching online for yarn - I should have bought the Patons Grace from JoAnn on Thanksgiving day - it would have been $3.23/skein and free shipping. Feeling sick to my stomach about that loss.

I'll show you, my pretty

did I mention that I took dave's sweater to be finished "professionally?"and it still looks weird...I just signed up for a finishing techniques class in encinitas - I am SO excited - I know that if someone can teach me, I'll be able to do it - it's just SEWING with a needle!!!!!!!I need to bind off the back of my divine cardigan and I finished the front of my striped sweater last night - progressthe bag sale is coming up and I'm starting to have yarn buying withdrawl - I don't know if I can hold it together for another two weeks - and I don't even know what I want to make - just know I want to have lots and lots of yarn around me

go bruins

dave helped me whip these
















up on sunday
can I be done with his projects now?oh, by the way, louise is re-seaming practically dave's entire sweateras she so delicately put it, the job I did was really "bad."he finally got the sweater over his head and the arms were all bunched up - it looked like crap.she said that I needed to learn some better finishing techniques. I said, I'd love to, do you teach any classes?she said, oh no, I don't teach finishing techniques, that's my profession.......gotta love those yarn ladies.while we were at LPK on sunday, we discovered their ball winder!!!! what fun! I had a bunch of the yellow and blue yarn all tangled up - and we wound a few sections into balls - we came right home and bought one off the internet!

what's wrong with this picture?

I finished seaming dave's sweater and did the neck ribbingand then I tried to put it over my head and it got stuckand I laughed outloud because I knew that if it wasn't going over my head, there was no way in hell it was fitting over his
I knew instantly that I'd have to take a picture













of the last hiccup in this sweater for dave

fantastic first meeting

yarn, wine, yummies and silly talkit was great!what does it mean, when I wake up in the middle of the night, dreaming about how to seam the shoulders of dave's sweater together though...?no offense, honey, but I really want to be through with this project for youlooks like I'll be re-doing a scarf a made for him in my early crocheting days - it's a little wide....pzee's husband wants a golf vest, and dave said he'd like one, tooguess I'll be searching for a pattern today....

maiden meeting

that's what avril1980 called tonight's first south OC meeting! I'm excited to see what everyone's working on and get more seaming done on dave's sweater.last night dave said, don't you get bored of just sitting there and knittingsilly boy, NO! the project I'm working on now has the cables which definitely keep things interesting and I'm already itching to start the brown and blue pullover (for me!!!).

be specific, would ya?

Dave figured out the measurements of his sweater on Sunday. The pattern only had percentages - so he put his astro-physics brain to the task and discovered that I had knit the top portion of the sleeves incorrectly.The sweater is knit in stockinette, and the instructions said, "Decrease one stitch each end of needle every knit row 44 times." So I only decreased on the "knit" side. I should have decreased EACH side.So I spent probably about 8 hours yesterday ripping out sleeves and redoing them. They're done - they're correct - and now all I need to do redo the shoulder seams - I tried a method that looked really crappy - sew the arms in and do the ribbing for the neck collar.What a relief.I've already finished the right front of my cabled cardigan - and started on the left side. So far, so good!

becoming unseamed

I seamed an entire sleeve to the body - only to find out it wasn't fittingso I did some researchand I ripped out the seamnow I've seamed the shoulders togetherbut they look totally stupidI'm pretty close to taking it to someone professional who knows what they heck they're doingI'm very close to finishing the second sleeve, so I'll revisit seams when I finish that