She's Come Undone

I'm almost finished with my Herringbone socks from Interweave Knits Winter 2008! Yeah! A couple more modifications and I'll be done. This has taken me a while to finish. Mostly because I had my new grandbaby's blanket to finish. She's almost here too! If DD doesn't go into labor by Sunday evening they are going to induce. Not quite sure why this is necessary, she was 10 days late herself. I guess the Dr. doesn't want an overdone baby, heh heh. Ok, back to the socks. In this post I told you about the modification I made on the heel. I didn't like the way the stripey goodness broke because of the short row heel. So I ripped back and inserted a heel of chocolate brown. I like it. Now at the top, I went up a needle size, 3s, to make sure my ribbing would stretch enough. Instead of using the multi colored yarn I made a contrast with the brown again. I'm loving this. (They fit well too.) Here's a riddle. How do you knit a toe up sock and finish at the toe? I decided to unravel the toe and make them brown too. I love knitting. It's the first craft in which I feel I can be truly creative. I don't know if anyone actually reads this blog especially since I update it so sporadically. Last night we went to see Anivl at the NuArt Theatre in LA.

GO SEE THIS MOVIE!

What a compelling story! They are the real Spinal Tap. If you live in Southern California, the show will be playing there for a couple of weeks. If not, go see it when it comes to you. Buy the DVD. It's funny and touching and REAL. Lips and Robb were at the theatre to answer questions after the show. Here's a review of the movie. I hope it is huge for them. Sacha Gervasi who wrote the screen play for The Terminal is the director of this amazing documentary. I felt tempted to laugh at times and then I realized that these are real guys and this is their life.

I don't know why, but you really fall for these guys. They are just normal family guys, - following their childhood dream. I don't even like the genre of music. I thought hair bands were silly. My (70s) music was much better! ;) I had never heard of them before last night. Now I'm a fan. I hope they get what they're after. It seems really promising. Gervasi says: “The only way you can fail is if you give up.” I have to agree.

Today's Sweater is a Wrap - "Literally"

Apologies to Brenda Dayne and Saturday Night Live for that title. A while back I wrote about some lovely yarn that I acquired at my LYS. I had my eye on a wrap that one of the girls was wearing and noticed how lovely it was draped across her shoulders. I couldn't stand it so I bought the yarn. I know, I'm weak. Who could resist this? The yarn is Schaefer Laurel in the Susan Sontag colorway. I noted at the time that the colors reminded me of the beach. I also noted that when I got home and started working on the pattern that they wrote out for me, my brain decided that it couldn't be right. My memory kept thinking that the ribs were thicker and there was more substance to it. It kept looking like a shopping bag to me. Actually, this would be a great stitch pattern for a shopping bag. I think the yarn might be overkill for a market bag though. Anyway, it was driving me crazy. I went to the web to look for stitch patterns. I found Lacy Diagonals and that was better, but still not giving me the thicker ribs I was looking for. I modified that and came up with the pattern below. Actually, this is the first pattern that I have written out. I named it Sky Wrap because it reminds me of clouds in the sky.

By the way, I was wrong. I went back to the store and compared my wrap to theirs. Stephanie's wrap was exactly as she had written it. She liked what I did though. My ends slant, hers were straight. My memory thought that her ends were slanted. What a brain fart! Anyway, mine's an original and I love it! I wore it all over Amsterdam in September.

At some point I'm going to post the pattern, but until I remind myself of what I actually did, I'll have to leave it off. Remind me to remind myself to refigure it out.......

Confession Time

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. In church last Sunday the lady in front of me was wearing a sweater that distracted me so much I couldn't concentrate on the sermon. I spent most of the time looking on my Ipod for a fern leaf knitting pattern. She got the sweater at Mervyn's. I want to make one. It was a wrap type sweater with the leaf pattern on the yolk front and back. The bodice was plain stockinette and had a few pleats at the center back. Probably on the front panels too. I don't remember. I spent all day yesterday trying to work out the pattern. I found something here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/leaf-bookmark. There were only 4 "leaves" on each stem and it had a clover like pattern in between the leaf. It's driving me nuts!

I just finished Josie's baby blanket.

I bound off using a size 7 needle and the 6th bind off on this page: http://weebleknits.blogspot.com/2003/05/stretchy-bind-offs.html

I want to keep this handy because I keep referring back to it. I hope someday I'll remember how to do this automatically. The easiest thing is to just use larger needles.

My daughter didn't want traditional pink or yellow. She chose purple for her new little girl. This yarn has a pearly white strand running through it that adds a bit of "glitz." I think she'll like it.

I finally got the invitations to the shower mailed.

I had forgotten that Monday was a postman's holiday. Hopefully everyone will forgive me that I asked them to RSVP so quickly. It's ok, in all we have invited about 60 guests. If the laws of invites hold true, 75% of them will come and that leaves us with about 45. Now to figure out the food. Do I make it myself or buy pre-made? I'm being a little Martha Stewart-y about all this. I have to count tables and chairs and tea cups. I'll probably end up buying paper ones. I wish they were shaped like tea cups rather than coffee cups. Other than that I hope it doesn't rain. It would be nice to do this in the backyard. Martha would have a conniption about my back yard though. Maybe she would get up early in the morning to plant petunias!

Update on the Knitting

On the needles right now are Herringbone Rib Socks from IK last issue (Winter I think.) It all started with a plane ride to San Antonio. Here I am casting on and watching a podcast of LetsKnit2gether.

As I was working these I noticed that the color was pooling into diagonal stripes. The cool thing was that I seemed to have cast on in a slightly different spot for each toe and now the stripes look like they are moving from one sock to the other:

After working the heel this didn't happen anymore. To continue the coolness I decided to make the heel out of a complimentary color and WALA!

We're back in business! Dang! I just realized that I probably didn't need to go out and buy another skein. I have virtually the same brown in a different yarn. It's just as well though. The socks I made out of that yarn have since felted. The yarn for these socks is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the colorway Roadside Gerry. I didn't even think of going back to the stash for the heels because I originally wanted a color to match the orange. They didn't have that but they did have the lovely brown in Shepherd Sock, so at least the fabric is consistent. Josie's Blanket

Underneath the socks is a baby blanket I'm working on for my future granddaughter. She's due on April 4. I've got to get crackin' on the invitations for DD's shower. Here's what they look like and where you can get them too:

Gina Jane's "Little Cards" Pansy Garden Tea Cup Card

The cutting is a B-word since I sprained my wrist on our snowboarding trip last week. But I think the card is so cute!

Here's the blanket so far:

I've done this one before in blue. I liked the yarn much better for that one. This one's Bernat Baby Coordinates. I should have used bamboo needles for it because my Knit Picks keep catching on the fiber and snagging it. I'm stubborn though, so I haven't changed yet. Happy Birthday to me! Yesterday was my birthday. Before I whine I should say that I'm too old to whine about a birthday. It was no one's fault, but I can't help but feel, um, whiny. There. Hey, it's my birthday and I can whine if I want to! DH put his back out last weekend and had an impossible deadline for work, so we didn't get to go out like he said we would. I had to take my mom to the doctor and it was pouring down rain. At the parking kiosk, the window wouldn't return to it's full upright and locked position, so I had about an inch open with rain coming in. Thank God it didn't stick all the way down. My attitude was so bad He could have made it do that. When we got back to her place I was able to pull it up manually. DD called to wish me a happy birthday and asked what we were doing for it. Um, nothing. Well, we got Chinese food and that was ok with me. I had actually decided I'd rather do that before DH suggested that it was too late to go out. The killer for me was when this comedian, Andrew Dice Clay came on TV. I don't like him. Now I remember why. DH snickered at some of the jokes and I asked him to turn it off. He went back to work and I went to bed. The end. My mom wanted to buy me a card right there in the store with me standing there since she hadn't had a chance to earlier. (I'm her means of transportation.) I wouldn't let her. Too embarrasing. MIL just called to wish me a happy belated birthday. She said she didn't get a chance to go out and get a card yesterday because it was pouring down rain. I said, "I know." DS 1 & 2 didn't call. Probably overlooked it. Can I get a WHAAAAAAAAA!?!?!?!?!?!? or maybe just some WINE!