Finished!

Today I finished the Oriel Lace Blouse! Whooo Hooo! I'm going to wear it to church tomorrow. It looks great if I say so myself!

I had it done except for the placket and buttons for several weeks. I even got the sleeves done and sewn in a couple of weeks ago. In fact, I was working on them when I lost my cat. He sat with me while I sewed them in. On 8/7 I had the back door open because it was so hot. I heard the dog chase him, but I thought he went upstairs. When I went to bed I noticed that he was missing, but he always shows up in the front yard, so I didn't worry. The next day he didn't show up and I got concerned. The dog looked so guilty when I asked him about the cat. After a few days I made up missing cat flyers and took them around the neighborhood. A few hours later I got a call from our neighbor 2 doors down and she said,"I've seen your cat. He's in Buellton." I said, "excuse me?" Buellton is 130 miles away from my house. Turns out he had gotten into the storage compartment of thier camper and rode all the way up there with them. He jumped out and scared them to death when they opened the door. They tried to get him back and he hung around for a couple of days, but wouldn't come to them. I called the animal shelter, but they haven't seen him. Every couple of days I check www.petharbor.com, but he doesn't show up. We went to Buellton the next weekend, but didn't find him. We left missing cat flyers around, but haven't heard anything yet. I really, really miss him.

Finished Another! Yesterday I had to take my mom to the doctor and the grocery store. It's warm out but when we go to the grocery store I always freeze. I was looking for something to wear and remembered that a couple of summers ago I made a sweater out of a heavy cotton yarn. I ran out before I made the sleeves so I wore it without them as a tank. Turns out the cotton was so hot I didn't wear it much after that. I did go back to the store to get more yarn and finished the sleeves but I never set them in. When I decided to wear it I found the sleeves and decided to sew them in. Yay! Another sweater done!

Front Back It's funny, now that I'm more experienced I noticed all the imperfections in it. It looks ok. It's a little loose, but that's perfect since I overdid it on the carbs this week. It was great for the frigid grocery store. And Yet Another! Today was the day for finishing. I finished my Coupling socks too! I had them done for a couple of days except for the bind off. I did the same bind off that I used for RPM. See the post below. I love them! I'd wear them tomorrow too, but they don't exactly go with the blouse. Oh well, I'll definitely wear them in Amsterdam.

We are going to Amsterdam in a couple of weeks. DH is working, but I'm going to hang out with the boss's wife. I'm looking forward to it. Hope I can find a yarn shoppe! Currently On The Needles The latest project is a wrap. I call it my Simple Sideways Wrap. I got the yarn last week at Unwind. They gave me a pattern for a wrap they have in the shop, but when I got home and cast on it wasn't what I remembered. I fooled around a little and came up with a pattern of my own. It is knit, left leaning decrease, knit, yo. I say "left leaning" because I knit combination and for me it's k2tog, but if you were to do that with western style knitting it looks different. So If you want it to look like mine you'd have to ssk. Or you can slant it the other direction. I think you'd start with the yo, but I haven't tried it myself yet. I started a cozy for my Zen with this pattern and the sock yarn from coupling. It's a yarn called "Maizy" and it is made from corn fiber. The only thing I don't like is that it was spun in Taiwan. Why did they have to do that? I believe that Crystal Palace Yarns is an American company. I guess it's cheaper, but is transporting the fiber back and forth worth the savings? I remember when things used to have a made in USA label on them. Now you don't see that much if at all. My next quest will be to find fiber that is manufactuered in the US.

Knit Knite Out

Last night I went to socialize with other knitters at my LYS. Seems that most LYSs have knitting groups that meet on Thursday nights. I tried to connect with another group, but this one for some reason is comfortable. I also ended up buying a new skein. Oops, that wasn't on the agenda. $40 bucks, but I couldn't resist. I love the weight of this yarn. It is Laurel, 100% mercerized pima cotton from Schaefer Yarn. The colorway is Susan Sontag. It reminds me of the beach. The silver, light brown and white are so soothing. There was a shawl/wrap made from it in the store and it just hangs beautifly.

I cast(ed) on as soon as I got home and quickly discovered that the instructions don't seem to be the same as the wrap in the store. It has a wider rib than what the directions say. Since I couldn't sleep, I fooled around a bit and I think I've got it now. I want to go back and look at the original just to be sure. Also since I knit combination style, I decided that I don't need to k2tog by flipping the stitches around. I did that for like 10 rows which slowed me down and looks kind of crappy. It doesn't matter which direction my rib goes! It's a shawl and it's mine, all mine! ;)

Happy Socks!

I finally finished my RPM socks last night. They are from Knitty.com Summer 2006. I made some adjustments to the pattern. First of all I made them toe up, two at a time on two circular needles. Then I made them much longer than the pattern. They fit pretty good, but when I went to bind off it was too tight. I originally did the sewn bind off, but it was too tight. So I did some searching and came up with the Russian bind-off. You can view the info here: http://wendyknits.net/archives/1152 This bind off came out much stretchier.

I forgot to mention that I also worked the design opposite on each sock. I thought I might look fun and interesting that way. They are made from Knit Picks Felici, colorway Pebble.

Brown, Brown, Everything Is Brown... During the winter I decided that I needed some brown socks to go with my brown slacks. Now I've got 3 pairs and I'm bored with brown! Not exactly a summer color. Think I'll go buy me some new sock yarn. And while I'm at it I need some yarn for the trim on my Origami purse from Folk Bags. I'm not showing you 'till it's done, but it's made from Noro Silk Garden. It seems a little thick, but we'll talk about that later.

Another Fine Mess

Alp Premier is a beautiful yarn I found in San Antonio a few months ago. I couldn't resist the yumminess. It was approx $30.00 a skein. Since I had nothing better to do while DH was at work, (yep, he works there, we live here...) I bought it. It sat in the stash for a month or so while I finished MIL's socks for Christmas. Lately I saw it made up into a shawl at my LYS. Silly me, I thought I could get away with only 1 skein. I have already knit this poor yarn 3 times. 1st time was Cat Bordhi’s Mobius cowl scarf. It looked more like a clown collar. No pics, please. Then I tried to knit a shawl, but the needles were too small. I think they were 11s. So I tried again on 13s, my largest. Ummm… It’s way too small. I noticed that one person who made a shawl out of it on Ravelry used two skeins. I’m not willing to go for another skein. The next reincarnation will be a plain straight longways scarf. I better like it this time. What possessed me to buy it in this colorway anyway? I know it must have been the brilliantly colored ribbon yarn. As I’m knitting it I think of Masquerade. My kids did the song in High School show choir and I sewed all the costumes in brightly colored lame. It was beautiful. Well, at least I thought so. ;)

Ambrosia

I just finished my Ambrosia Socks. This is a beautiful sock pattern, carefully designed and documented. I knit them in Knit Picks Gloss in Cocoa which is very soft. The stitches are well defined and make a wonderful sock. Too bad I don't follow directions very well... I ripped them down about 3 times, so I should have been done a month ago. The first time I wasn't happy with my short row heels. They had holes at the turn, so I used a different method that I had used on my MIL's socks. Everyone seems to have a different way to turn the heel. I think I like this one best.

The butterfly rib pattern is so easy, I didn't think I needed to look at the directions after the first repeat. Just knit, and knit, and knit - Oops! I realized that I had not added the 4 additional stitches as I started the pattern up the leg, and I knew it wasn't right, but I kept going... Finally I looked at the pattern. Since I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I do like the knitting, I frogged down to where the pattern starts. Then, I kept knitting and knitting, thinking I must be almost done when, wa la, I looked a the pattern again, and I was supposed to move up a needle size 4 pattern repeats down. Again I frogged. Moral of the story, read the directions all the way through and pay attention! Anyway, I'm happy with them now. They are so comfortable and I love the pattern's detail. On to the next pair...

What Brought Me Back

This is the project that started it all. It was approximately 4 years ago. The woman who lead our bible study wanted to have it at her mom's yarn shop one night. I was immediately taken in by the small store in Pasadena, CA. I wish this store had a website. The name is Elegance Designer Yarns on Green St. You can Google it for the address. It was so artfully arranged. There was a comfy couch in the bay window, antique hutches and side boards with yarn spilling off the shelves in a riot of colors. I think I was taken back to when I first started knitting at about 8 or 9. I didn't stick with it then. The sticks were awkward and I couldn't keep my tension straight. If only I'd learned continental first. I think I only tried to knit a scarf at first and I quickly became bored. Besides, the yarn was something on the order of a Red Heart yarn. (Not that there's anything wrong with that... Seinfeld) Just not very comfortable to work with. At any rate, I heard that there was a workshop the next Saturday, so I signed up for it. Barry Klein from Trendsetter was teaching a pattern for an afghan. I think it is called Anniversary Plaid. It ended up not being a knitting project, but a crocheted one. That was fine with me because at that time I was more comfortable with crochet. Since my SIL was pregnant, I decided this would be the perfect project. It took a while, and after I had a few color changes I decided that I didn't like my choice of yarn. I hopped on down to my favorite LYS, Unwind, and there bought the yummy yarn for the blanket.

Drinkin' And Knittin'

Remember how I thought it looked so much better after I changed all the purls to knits?

Well, I wasn’t happy with that either so I frogged the panel down to where you start adding stitches again and really worked on replacing them with the pattern. The stitches look all wonky now because I used a size 0 needle to redo them and I just found two dropped stitches. Ya know, it ain’t easy to repair dropped stitches in lace. They are probably about, oh, 20 rows or so down. They aren’t even in the place I repaired. I’m thinking that was the other night when we had wine with dinner. Caution, don’t drink and knit lace!!!

I’m about ready to tear my hair out with this! I got to thinking that I probably increased the body the same way I tried to do the sleeves. Maybe I can just make a couple of wine cozies out of them...

A Few Finished Objects

Embossed Leaves Socks from Interweave Knits, Winter 2005

Hedera by Cookie A. These were done a while back, probably 2 years ago now. I've just had the pictures lurking on my computer. I'll post some more later. I've got lots more.....

I was wondering how others work on their blogs. Mine seems to go in fits and starts. Sometimes I have the words and no pictures, and other times I don't know what to say. At the moment I'm blown away. I went looking for inspiration at Grumperina's blog and this is what I found. She's married! Woah. That is so cool. I haven't checked in on her blog for a while and, well, I never suspected. Anyway, congrats! I took some pics of the repair I'm doing to the sleeves of the lace blouse.

Before and After

I think it looks better after. I wouldn't be comfortable with the pattern interrupted under my armpits. Just a little distracting, I think. I ended up just knitting all the way. There didn't seem to be room for the purls to show up except to continue up the center of the pattern. Ahh, now that the holiday rush is over I can concentrate on getting my own stuff done again. Mmmmm, more socks perhaps? I got this yummy yarn just before the holidays and I can't wait to start something.

Happy New Year!

I know it doesn't look like I've done much lately, but believe me, I have. Christmas was super busy knitting socks for MIL, a scarf for my mom (on Christmas Day!) I finished the sweater for my SIL. Really it had been done since July, but I never bought the buttons. So I was sewing those on the week before Christmas.

Since Christmas I have almost finished another scarf. Nothing too fancy. I had the yarn left over from the "Homeless Scarf Project" that our church did this year. The yarn is Lion Brand Homespun. I have mostly shunned the fiber available at stores like Michael's but I am discovering that even Lion Brand is producing some nice product. Homespun is all poly/acrylic, but very soft. Unfortunately it ravels a lot. I made tassels for my mom's scarf and it is now getting fiber all over her. Oops. I don't think she minds. She was telling my MIL that she wanted me to knit her something. This was while I was in the kitchen hiding away trying to finish her scarf! I was late on this project because I started MIL's socks 2 weeks before Christmas and there was more knitting than I thought. They were actually a full size sock, but the picture has the cuff rolled. I thought the cuff was just decorative. I hope they are not itchy. I made them from a Lana Grossa sock yarn that I found in Texas. It seemed soft when I bought it, but after working with it for a while it felt somewhat itchy. I also made them rather large because she complained that she can't find socks that fit her. Well, I hope these do. I haven't heard anything about them yet. I'm sure I will. I have also gone back to my Oriel Lace Blouse. I'm working on the sleeves and am almost to the sleeve cap. There's something I want to change though. The place where you add on stitches I have used purl stitches and it looks funky to me. So I think I am going to switch all these stitches to what the pattern should be other than increases and decreases. Knits for the knit rows and purls for the purl rows. Hopefully it will blend a little better then. I got a new camera for Christmas. Now I just got to upload the pics! Pictures uploaded 1/6/08