The Help

Dinner now takes three times as long these days now that someone has decided that he needs to help Mommy "cook". Luckily, the dinner was only pasta. You should have seen the mess when he helped me make pancakes one night and biscuits another. The boy likes flour.

Mommy's Lil' Helper

Sort of Jogless Stripes

I'm still working on my Tubey sweater. I didn't do a whole lot of knitting over the weekend, but I did do some. Specifically, I started on the stripes section of the first sleeve.

I wanted to try the "Jogless" stripes where the striping is even and doesn't have really noticeable transitions. I got close, but not as close as I would have liked.

I used the following method that I borrowed from the blog, TECHknitting.

1. Started the new color as I normally would and then knit around one time.
2. Next round, I slipped the first stitch of the new color and then knit around.
3. Then knit around all the other rows for as many as called for.

Now, when I am not doing color changes and I join a ball of yarn, I usually use spit splicing so that there is no obvious join. I didn't do that in this case and probably should have. I just knit the two colors together for one stitch and then dropped the old color and continued with the new. I'm not sure if that would have made a difference though. Here is what I got:



Blocking will help, but there's got to be a way to do this cleaner. I tightened the first stitch that was knit with the two colors before weaving in the ends. It's possible that I did it too much or maybe not enough, I'm not sure. Maybe changing the tension there would help.

This is the first time that I've tried stripes in sweaters. Any suggestions would be very appreciated. Once it's on, it won't be noticeable since the joins will be facing towards the side of the body, but I'd like to get it right on the body of the sweater.

And The Winner Is...

Lillyanka! Congratulations!

I've sent you an email, but if you see this first, please contact me asap with your address and some yummy yarn and the gorgeous White Lies Designs pattern will be coming your way!

Reluctantly Sharing

This is a rarity in my world - The two indoor kitties sharing a sunbeam. Notice how they sit with their backs to each other? Yeah, no love lost here. He's (the yellow cat and 16 lbs.) taking a bath and she's (10 lb. if she's wet brown kitty) very prim and proper and ignoring the hell out of him. They share like my kids share, very poorly.

Reluctantly Sharing a Sunbeam

I've started on one of the sleeves of the shrug part of the sweater and I'm doing this part with two circs. It's moving along pretty steadily so far.

We're off tonight to the Fall Festival at the Eldest's school tonight. I'm just hoping we don't lose the Youngest in the crowds there. He's a runner and refuses to hear anyone telling him to stop. It kinda sucks that he's too old to be in a stroller now. Oh well, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right? :)

Forgot to Add: Contest results will be here tomorrow!

I made jewelry!

Today is my Sister-In-Law's Birthday!

I made her something special. Wanna See?

This is the first necklace that I have made. Took me half the day to figure out how I wanted it done. It had to be silver, have lots of blues and greens and still be somewhat delicate. I think it came out great. It's approximately 17".

This jewelry making stuff could be addicting!