ottawa, baby

Brian is going to ottawa on sundayhe will be ONE POINT SEVEN MILES away fromYarn ForwardHe said, "Uh, how much space do I need to allow in my suitcase for this visit?"I said, "I have a suitcase you can borrow!"I've already started picking out what I want:These are nice in Cherry and Blue/White.and could this be any cheaper (in Tangerine)?I want to have my orange cotton tank top - but don't want to rip and re-do the crappy one I made last year.and there are some CUTE patterns in Rebecca - mottled blue jacket - would look nice with the blue/white or the cherry.Leah is coming over tomorrow - she said she'd help me pick out yarns from knitpicks.I continiued knitting the sleeves for the tre mouline - I've decided that I will sew it up and disregard the extra width on the one sleeve side - and I even contemplated using a sewing machine - so much faster - and then if I was very brave I could serge the edge and cut off the extra.*crossing fingers*

the blues

I ripped, recalculated, and reseamedand the surplice jacket still isn't workingI've been so depressed about this project that I don't even feel like working on anything elsebut I would love to buy more yarn!dave said that if I cleaned up the office and filed all the papers away (a job he detests) that I could buy $20 of yarnthat office was spic and span and organized the very next day!now I'm contemplating which yarns to get from the new knitpicks collectionmy difficulty in projects seem to be choosing patterns and different yarns to go togetherand not swatchingand not being good at mathand being impatientI need a knitting boot camp:8am - pick pattern8:30am - swatch different yarns9:30am - break10am - math lesson12pm - lunch1pm - calculate pattern with swatch gauge2pm - begin knitting pattern3pm - break3:30pm - continue knitting4:30pm - Q&A5:30pm - dinner

baby shower tomorrow

we're wrapping up the













tonightso I took pictures before it goes to the new babypixie and I went to encinitas to the north coast knitting guildwe saw vivian hoxbro do a presentation about her life/careershe was very sweetwe met the president of the laguna hills knitting guildand saw a woman who knits at LPK on wednesday nightsafterward we went to common threads and the black sheepat the black sheep they had the new rebecca magazine and blocking pins!life is good!

what? no mention of the kitty bed?!

here is shelby














enjoying her new felted kitty bedwe've been taking lots of pictures of her when she's in there - mostly because we can't believe she actually uses it!AND the baby blanket, booties, and hat are complete - picture to be posted soon!

where you been?

oh knitting here and thereI was working on the blue bulky cardiganbut messed up the mathneeded more yarnso I got some more from the yarn ladyand put it away for another dayI finished the baby blanket and whipped up some botties!














now I'm finishing up the body of my v-neck sweater - the yellow mixed with multi-colored ribbonit's been a good challenge and looks really cool! the "lace" work on the bottom is so pretty AND my scarf style and patons grace yarn









arrived and my spiral ruffles scarf is coming along!you can't really tell from the picture, but the beige-y color is really has more of a greenish hueI have some crazy idea in my head that I can finish the yellow sweater before wednesday nightlet a girl dream and get back to knittingciao for now!

hats

Eric sent me some pictures of his kippah and Garrett asked me to make him a hat














yesterday. He designed it - I knitted it today. I told him we should go into business together! I had a fantasy while knitting it that he would be famous and wear one of my handmade hats everytime he performed or had a public appearance. Someone from MTV would ask him about the hats he always wears. He would say, I design them, and my aunt knits them for me.And of course everyone on the face of the planet would want one because he is the coolest person ever.

mixed yarn pattern

I was so excited yesterday morning to find this pattern for my maize yarn that I am mixing with the multi-colored ribbon.After a frustrating morning of figuring out that their key translation was incorrect - an umschlag is a YO NOT a Sl 1 and ripping out about 6 rows, I knitted back to where I had ripped and it looks BEAUTIFUL!















Here















is the progress I've made on the baby blanket.I finished the brown and eggshell blue sweater, but it's a little shorter than I would prefer. I'm going to knit up some extra rows for the front and back and then figure out a way to attach them.I've added new Completed Projects pictures and here















is a closeup of the drop stitch I used for the yarn that Melissa wouldn't let me pay her for. Thank you, Melissa!

new yarn

it's been quite a busy week...having to have dave do the math on my striped sleeves, ripping out, re-knittingand I started on the baby blanketit's pretty simple!one "complicated row" - which repeats a pattern - which then becomes easy to learnthe remaining three rows are repeating combinations of knitting and purlingthose four rows over and over againhere is my new yarn





















serendipitously, the yarn I'm making the baby blanket with got into the picture - top right

a day of finishing

oh yarn sale... so much yarn, so little timeit was such a great idea to go with a few projects in mindmost of the bags I bought went for a specific needand then I bought a few extra kinds just because I liked themand then there was the camel hair/merino bag of 10 skeins that I got for $58.50this was especially a steal because I had grabbed two bags, I looked at the price - $170 and realized that I should take one back because I wouldn't need twothe bag I was left with had a different price on it! $53 worth of a differenceat that point there was no doubt I'd be buying ittomorrow is our knitting get together - so I'll be gathering a skein from each bag to take with me for show and tell. I'll take a picture of them tomorrowplus a picture of the estivo cardigan, cabled mohair that I spent most of the day finishingit's not bad! the mohair hides a lot, but overall - it's a cute, yet somewhat thick sweater - my other show and tell item.I'm several inches near to finishing the striped sweater - going to work on that now!

finishing + practice = no more louise

I was so thrilled to learn the basic finishing techniques today! The hardest thing we learned was adding on a button hole band. And the best part was learning how to do short rows!!!!!I definitely need to practice - and am so excited to have a few projects to work on.Tomorrow is the bag sale - it seemed like so far away for so long, and now it's tomorrow!!! I'll probably be dreaming of yarn all night.

can't control the beast

apparently I couldn't wait for the bag sale on saturday to buy yarnI had to buy from a store I swore I would never again buy frombut it's a gift for someone's baby...and dave said I could...do those things make it OK?I bought Flower Variegated to make a blanket, a hat, and booties
Leah came over yesterday and we knitted.I've started the sleeves on the brown and light blue sweater.

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