A Walk In The Fall

I know I promised knitting pics today, but I'm about to leave to go to a cub scouts meeting with the Eldest and don't have time to take them.

What I do have is some pics from a walk at Kennesaw Mountain that the Youngest and I took today. It was absolutely beautiful there. It was about 55 degrees and sunny and perfect for a long walk.


I discovered that this is the perfect way to get a child and dog ready for naptime. Both were exhausted when we got back. The kid went down for a nap and the dog curled up and didn't move an inch for two whole hours. Wonderful!


Forgive the over pixelated pics. Camera phones are not the best. I do like the look though, makes it kinda artsy, don't ya think?

Spinning Question and Knitting Start Overs

Remember when I built my DIY Hackle? Well, I got a great question about the differences between Hackles/Combs and Hand Cards and wanted to share the question/answer.

The question was:
I found a link to your site from yarnzombie's blog--I just wanted to say thanks for posting such great pictures and infomation. I am a way new spinner and have been looking for a way to build wool combs with hair picks. I just have one question and it sounds kinda dumb-- what's the difference between wool combs and a hackle? Actually I guess I have two questions....does this process replace hand carding? I have mohari from my own angora goats and I think that the combing/hackle processw would work better as it is a longer staple. I will have to look up your page on ravelry. Thanks again and have a great weekend!


First, let me say Thank You for the great comment on my blog. You made my day yesterday when I read that!

Now, on to my answer:
Combs and Hackles are essentially the same thing in my opinion. They are both for dealing with long staple fibers, so it should be perfect for your angoras.

I would not say that they replace hand cards though.

Both hand cards (or extra large dog slicker brushes like I use) and hackles/combs are great for blending fibers. But here's the differences:

1. Hand cards would be better for shorter staples, hackles/combs for longer ones.

2. Depending on how you want to spin, the method that you use to straighten out and separate the fibers makes a big difference. Hand carding makes the "mini batts" or rolags that are great for woolen yarns and hackles/combs are great for the worsted yarns.

Of course, there's absolutely nothing stopping you from ignoring any of the above and doing things your own way. There are so many ways to spin yarn. *You* are the master of your spinning and if another method works better for you, go for it.

Please remember that I'm not a spinning expert by any means. I'm still new to the hobby myself! I feel I've learned so much already, but I'm years away from being proficient at producing by own yarn. While I am not an expert, I could absolutely be considered an addict. :)


I re-picked up a knitting project that I started back in April before I got de-railed by all my Summer knitting deadlines. Remember this?

Well, I picked it back up and spent a good 20 minutes trying to figure out where I had left off in the pattern. Then I remembered that there had been a problem with gauge. So I got out the measuring tape and the completed sleeve and went to town measuring. Turns out the sleeve was way too long and I decided that it would really bother me if I didn't re-do everything.

My reasoning for ripping out everything that I had previously done was this:
1. It was going to bug me forever if I didn't.
2. Row gauge in this pattern is going to be critical!

• I really don't want sleeves that long and stopping early in the pattern wouldn't look right.
• Also, when I get to the yoke part, the way I was going was going to add a good two inches around my shoulders making it not fit right up there at all.

So. The hours and hours of knitting disappeared in about 15 minutes flat. Oy vey or whatever the saying is.

I am now 3 inches into the first sleeve, again, but this time I'm using a size 6 needle instead of a 7 and my row gauge seems to be spot on. My stitch gauge doesn't seem to have been affected at all.

If you tackle this sweater, I wouldn't suggest doing a swatch in stockinette as the pattern suggests. You're not going to get the same gauge as what you would get when you do the cables, it's just not. going. to. happen. But that's just my 2 cents for ya.

I'll have another update with pics for you tomorrow!

It's happened again

Damn and Double Damn. It's happened again. Yes, I'm talking about the alpaca vest done in waffle stitch.

I've come to the conclusion that the waffle stitch hates me. The yarn may like this stitch, but it's not reciprocated.

There I was, booking along on this vest, watching tv, happy as a clam. Until I looked down and saw this:

It's difficult to see the mistakes, but you'll notice the red arrows, I'm sure. Below red = good. Red and up = bad. Just look at all those purl stitches clustered together like a bunch of old biddies that shouldn't be clustering together. I don't know for the life of me what I'm doing differently than on the yellow side, but now I get to rip for the second time in a week and just about the same amount. Damn.

I may go back to spinning more yarn instead knitting it.

Spinning!

Way back in July I got this really pretty batch of roving which you can see here. I am still working on spinning it up. Yes, still. There was/is a ton of it. Part of the reason that it is taking me so long to get this finished is that I am having to card it up to get the various and sundry tangles out of it. On my little dog slicker brushes, that is taking a while. The resulting rolags are tiny.

I picked it up again yesterday and finally found a workable system. I card some, spin some. I had been doing all carding and then all spinning and both were getting tedious. I think that I prefer spinning stuff that has at least some color changes to it. The yarn that I am getting is pretty, but the spinning of it leaves much to be desired.

Here is what I did last night = it's still on the niddy noddy:

Click to Enlarge

I really like the results I'm getting. I just wish it wasn't taking me so long to get it done. I really, really want to play with the fiber that I got at SAFF. I'm trying to be good and finish it first though.

*****

By the way, You know it's getting cold when...

...Every single time you sit down at your desk you get a lap full of cat:

Have you voted?

Did you vote today like a good American? The hubby and feel it is our civic duty to cancel out the votes of my in-laws. :)

It's not like my vote is really going to count anyway. The electoral college is where the President is picked, the popular vote doesn't really count. If you don't believe me, look at poor Al Gore's run for President. Bush = electoral, Gore = popular. Who got to be President? Not that I voted for Gore, mind you, but I actually thought my candidate would be a good choice. oops.

Knitting news - I have ripped back the vest and am now trying to get those stitches made back up. I'd show you, but didn't you see more progress yesterday? Looks worse now, trust me.

If you haven't already voted- do so! At least let yourself believe that you have a say.

For you in foreign countries - sit back and enjoy the show of the elections!

Knitting & Halloween, but not in that order

Halloween is such an exciting time for the kiddies. They get dressed up in their favorite costumes, argue because they want their sibling's accessories, and fun is had by everyone except Mom and Dad. Right?

This is what the first half of the evening looked like:

Woody really wanted the Evil Paladin Knight's Trident. It's tough being a good guy sheriff all the time. Sometimes you just want to get on 'Ol Bullseye and wave a trident around instead of a gun. The Evil Paladin Knight wasn't having any of that nonsense though and so there were many, many tears and screams of anger from Woody. Mom's hair garnered a few more grays in the process. Not that I needed any more highlights.

'Ol Tex seemed to get over it alright though, but Bullseye got left at home:

Evil Demon kitty did too. We didn't want to frighten the neighborhood youngsters:

I am heartily sick of all the candy. I have no willpower when it comes to Snickers and Twix and Milky Way and, and, and... I have eaten my weight in chocolate, my pants seem to have shrunk and my face is breaking out. But anyway, That's enough of Halloween!

On to Knitting now:

When last I spoke of knitting I was on the way to SAFF, I tried really hard to make this beautiful gray alpaca yarn become the Honeycomb Vest, but it would. not. succomb. My wants and wishes were ignored. The yarn just didn't want to become that vest.

Well, I still wanted an alpaca vest. So it was back to the drawing board. I picked the Thermal Vest instead. And guess what? It's working:

Sort of. See the third row down? Yep, mistake. I get to go and rip this back now and fix it or it will bother me forever. But still, the yarn likes the pattern! Yay!

Happy Halloween!

I broke out of my crafting comfort zone yesterday to do a little sewing. From Scratch. That's right, no pattern! I don't have any problems making clothing out of yarn. If I mess it up, I know that I can go back and start over. But with a sewing machine? If I mess it up, there's no real fixing it. Once you start in with the scissors on the fabric, if it's cut wrong, say sayonara to the project. So I'm quite proud of what I was able to accomplish in a couple of hours this time.

I grabbed a tutorial off of ThreadBanger about making a hoodie based on a fitted Tshirt that I already owned. This is a great little tutorial. I absolutely love this kind of stuff - Inexact, guess as you go projects. I'm not sure why I was unafraid of this, I'm usually terrified of sewing clothes. I can quilt, but sewing is not my forte.

So, I started with some black velour fabric out of the stash that my Mom donated to her favorite charity, me, and with a fitted Tshirt out of the closet:



Added in a little help from my Mom's Westie:


And eventually got to this:



A cute little shirt for just a few hours of time.

Please excuse the blurry pic and the dirty mirror. (It's hard to photograph yourself in a dirty mirror wearing black velour when your usual photographer is at school being studious.)

I did mess up one part though. The all important hood. It's just not a hoodie without one of those, ya know? Somehow, and I don't have a clue how, it came out too small. So Widget the cat now has her witchy costume (or would that be her Widgey costume?) for tonight:


And let me tell you, she's just thrilled to pieces about it. Can't you tell?

Tummy Troubles

Well, we now have a name for what's been ailing the Eldest. Poor thing is suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome. He got it honestly from family members. At least now we can concentrate on minimizing the symptoms from it.

I've been scrambling all day. I ran to the store to get last minute Halloween costume accessories, then it was off the to first doctor to get lab results. Next came checking the kids out of school and then running to the new doctor.

The Youngest is not at his best at this point. He had a 20 minute nap, a lunch that was two and a half hours late and now he's at the manic stage that all two year olds hit after a day like today.

In a couple of hours I shall be dumping the whole load on their father and racing to choir practice.

One day I might have time to knit again. I did do a few minutes of spinning this afternoon, but there's not much to show for my efforts. :sigh: Maybe after Halloween is over...

The Haul

SAFF this weekend was a Fiberholic's worst enemy. Every direction that you turned was fiber, and more fiber, and more. There was no such thing as the "social drink" of fiber at SAFF, oh no. This was the full blown, fallen off the wagon, someone please take my keys cause I've drunk too much (and purchased too much) - Oh Hello Occifer- of a fiber festival!

I might have spent a little too much cashola there too. Um, *shifts eyes right and left* don't tell the hubby or I'll have to lie to him again. 'kay?

Anyway, here's the haul:

1. 8 oz. of Cloverleaf farms Merino Top in Riverstone:


2. The next time I get the urge to dye some wool, I'm gonna play with this, the Lanaset starter set.


3. Exotic fibers - I found Camel fiber, Tussah silk, bombyx silk and a little clear and gold "flash" as well. I was really surprised at how soft the camel is.


4. Meet the alpacas. On the left is the gorgeous black fiber from an alpaca named Sambo and on the right is a deep chestnut brown from an alpaca named Sherman. Normally, being from the deep South, I would avoid anything named Sherman like the black plague, but I couldn't keep my hands off that rich chocolate color!

5. Pre-dyed Cotswold Curls! I'll use these in needle felting and in spinning.

6. Toys! At nine o'clock is some free stitch markers we scored, at 12 is a little tool for making a kind of frog closure and at 3 you have some needles for needle felting.

My Mom thought she was just coming along to keep me company and got totally caught up in needle felting and had to get the stuff to do it. She started with the needles and then I grinned evilly as she paid for it and said, "you know you're gonna have to by roving now." I've done my job as a non sober fiberholic. Yep, she's off the wagon now too! mwa-hahahahahahaha!

Oh, and by the way - It's way too freaking cold here for this time of year! 36 degrees this morning - in October! Brrrrr!

Outside kitty (named Cammie) would like to brave the three dogs and two other cats and two rowdy children and come in now please!

SAFF, My Birthday Weekend and a Broadway Musical!

I successfully survived both SAFF and my 39th Birthday weekend.

I don't mind telling everyone this is my 39th, because this is the last birthday that I will ever have to acknowledge. The rest of them will strictly be known as anniversaries and I will be 39 forever and henceforth!

Friday got off to a rocky start. We managed to leave at around 3:30pm, but you have to remember that this is in Atlanta traffic and it was raining for the first time in over a month. Because of those two factors, people were driving on the highway with their heads up their behinds and having wrecks. The trip that was supposed to take three and a half hours took us five and a half hours and we didn't get our supper and margaritas until after 9pm.

Saturday was sweet! We saw several people from our LYS, The Whole Nine Yarns, wandering around. The crowds were in an amazing mood. Everyone, and I do mean everyone was so friendly and happy. The colors and textures of the products for sale were spectacular as well. I swear that I managed to "pet" everything that I could reach and those things ranged from the alpacas and angora bunnies to roving, yarn and sweaters for sale.


I found some of the most amazing art that I've ever seen. This lady does hers with needle felting.

This example is of puppets. All in the following pic are made by needle felting and the detail work is amazing. It blows my mind that she used a tiny needle and some loose bits of roving and got these. You can see more of her work here. Check out the dinosaur one. As always, please click on the pic to enlarge to see the detail work of all three pics.


These two pieces are astounding:


And this one needs to be in a museum somewhere:


The alpacas were just adorable. Check out these three lounging around:


This one has freckles on her snout:

We even got to feed a couple of them:


The alpacas also made the most amazing humming noise as they communicated with each other. The hubby and I had already decided to get some in a few years and raise them for their fleece, but now I'm absolutely committed to it. I must have them!

And for an extra overdose of SAFF cuteness, check out this 4 day old goat that was there. It was the size of a travel coffee mug. ( I know that, because there was one on the ground next to it.)


By the way - I've been trying to write this for approximately 3 hours. In that time, we've had three power outages, homework tears over a report for school and the Youngest (fascinated by the first fire in the fireplace that he ever remembers seeing) throwing his chocolate donut and paper towel into the fireplace when I wasn't looking.

Anyway, the best part of the weekend happened on Sunday (on my actual birthday) when I got to see this at the Fox Theater:


All-in-all, a fantastic weekend.

Edited to add: I'll show you all the loot I got from SAFF tomorrow!

The comedy of the last two days.

The past two days have been far from fun at the house of Shea.

Wanna know why?

1. I went window shopping on Wed. for some Christmas toys for the Youngest. At the time they were $8. Since he was with me, I decided to come back on Thursday so he wouldn't see them come home. When I got there on Thursday, guess what? The price had been raised to $10. I lost 6 dollars on those toys in just one day.

2. I picked up the Youngest after school and he was running a fever of 100 degrees. He then proceeded to spend the rest of the evening throwing up and causing me to miss choir practice at the church we've just started going to. Not only did he throw up, but I lost count of how many times after the 7th time.

3. Got maybe 1 hour sleep last night.

4. I needed to pack today for my trip tomorrow. What did I do? 5 loads of laundry that consisted of sheets that he threw up on, two sets of my clothes, two of his father's, 5 of his, two of his "night-night" blankets and misc. others. I told his brother to stand next to him since it was his turn to be thrown up on, but he wasn't having any.

5. I went to blog earlier today. Blogger was down.

6. I went to blog later. The Youngest was screaming "Mummy!" at the top of his pitiful lungs and crying buckets.

7. I picked out a sweater vest to make on the trip. When I grabbed my alpaca yarn for it and did a swatch, you couldn't see a hint of the pattern. So, back to the drawing board. I'm already starting to get twitchy without a serious project going on and I just finished the last one yesterday.

8. I'm still trying to pack and sew a button on a sweater for the trip. I'm still doing laundry. I'm still dealing with a sick kid and another that would love just 5 minutes of attention.

I did get dinner made. That was a huge accomplishment in my book. Thank heaven for small favors.

I need a serious alcoholic beverage for the nerves, but sadly, I'm on sick call tonight. But tomorrow night on my trip? All bets are off!


See ya Monday!

Done! Tubey is Complete!

I have a Finished Object! I finished the Tubey Sweater that I've been working on for the past month. I love this pattern. The construction was fun and the stripes kept me from getting bored with all the k3,p1 ribbing.

I got it finished just in time for SAFF in Asheville, NC this upcoming weekend. It's also my birthday weekend, but more on that later.

I love the sweater, but not the jeans. Please forgive the incredibly out of date jeans. I do have the perfect necklace to go with this sweater, but I forgot it when me and The Eldest did the photo shoot. Didn't he do a great job? I'm thinking he needs his own digital camera for Christmas.


Details:

Yarn used: Cascade 220 in black - 3 skeins, 9461 (Yellow-green), 7830 (Coral red), 7816 (Turquoise Blue) I used less than one skein of the three colors.

Needles: Size 8 circs

Mods:

1. Used 3 colors and not always as directions indicated. Close, but not exact. I played around with the width of the stripes as I went along.

2. Sewed the neckline to the shrug section after completing the sweater for about 1 inch on either side. The neckline before was way too low and revealing. I much prefer the neckline now.

3. The rolling of the fabric was driving me nuts. I single crocheted around the sleeves and the entire neckline of the sweater including the shrug part in the back. I’m considering doing this at the bottom as well, but haven’t decided as of yet. I might do it just to add a bit more length as well.

Note: I used the jogless stripe technique as follows:

1. Join new yarn to old for one stitch.
2. Drop old and knit 1 round with the new color.
3. When you get back to the joining of the two colors, pick up the stitch below it and place it on the needles then ktog. Make sure to move your stitch marker and place it after this stitch. Your round will move one stitch each time.
4. Knit around as usual.

Almosta

I've almost got a sweater:


I've got about four inches or so left to go. I'm trying to hurry on this so I can wear it at SAFF this coming weekend. Hopefully it will be cool enough for it.

We had a great time at a family get together this weekend at the In-Law Great Grandparents' place. I was dreading going since some of that family can be a bit odd, but it turned out to be pretty fun. There were a bunch of children there and they turned out to be entertainment for everyone and kept the family members from squabbling, so it was all good.

This pic is pretty representative of the kids there. There's a few missing from it, but who can keep up with that many kids anyway? That's the Youngest in the orange. I don't know where the Eldest was at this time. See what I mean?

Never shop with the BFF

I had the best time today. My BFF and I went to Mistletoe Market this morning. It's a great market where local vendors sell their wares and you are supposed to go and load up on Christmas gifts for others. While I did load up on gifts, they were mostly decorations for my house.

I decided that shopping with the BFF is not healthy for Ye 'Ol Wallet. I think it's mutual. If one of us said "Oh that's cute!" the other said "Oh yes, you need that!" and of course we bought it. Tragic.

So as soon as I got home I had to ditch the shopping bags and hide half of the loot like it's already lived here for years and hope that the hubby doesn't notice.

I am slowly making progress on the Tubey sweater, but not enough to show you. Doesn't look much different than when I took the picture last, so you'll have to wait 'til the weekend is over for an update.

I'm going to go play on Facebook and Ravelry for a while now, have a great weekend!

I'm not feeling very perfect today - too frazzled

On the days when you're not feeling very perfect or crafty (like me today), you can watch something like this and realize that not even Martha Stewart is perfect. I know it makes me feel better:

Tubey progress

Hey, check out the new background on the blog! What do ya think? Yay or nay? All comments are most welcome!


The Tubey sweater has finally turned from looking like a scarf towards looking more like a sweater. The yellow oval has been placed in the photo to denote the neckline to help you visualize it a bit better. Technically it should have been a half circle, but flickr only lets me do so much.


Today the kitties decided not to share sunbeams, but they're still ignoring each other.

The Plans for the Compound

Obviously I am not a "Man's Man". I only scored an 800 out of 1500. That's officially terrible.

Now I'll never be able to go out and be a survivalist that lives in his own compound and avoids the world while waiting for the apocalypse to happen. So instead, I will train my husband to to all these things and I'll bring along the spinning wheel, yarn and knitting and cooking skills to keep us clothed and fed. We'll train the kids to do basic things like weed a garden, feed the chickens, alpacas and cashmere goats and wind yarn into yarn balls. And we'll all live happily ever after while the world is over run with terrorists and their little friends. So there.

Beads!

Why do I always think that I'm going to get a lot of knitting done while I'm at the lake on the occasional weekends that we go? I do this on vacations and other trips too. I pack a whole bunch of yarn and needles and patterns and expect to finish all of the projects.

I got the second sleeve done. sigh.

But! I did do something fun with beads. My mom and I made some necklaces. Here's mine:


It took much longer to do these than expected thanks to a certain little two year old boy that thinks he should be allowed to play with all the beads and mix them up and drop them on persian-style rugs that have a billion colors in them so that you can't find the beads when they're dropped. How's that for a run-on sentence? He got a lot happier when we gave him some old necklaces to play with though. :)

I love the combinations of browns, copper, gold and black. You could wear this with any shade of brown or black for that matter and it would always look great. I'm seriously considering getting into the jewelry business. I would love to make these and sell them. It'd be nice to have some pocket change to supplement my fiber habits. Don't you agree?

Jogless Technique Comparison

Here are some side by side pics of two different Jogless Striping Techniques.

#1 Knit one stitch with both colors then drop the old and knit around with the new. Then, on next round slip the stitch that has both colors and knit around. Next round, knit all.

#2 Again knit one stitch with both colors then drop off the old and knit with the new. Then, on next round take the stitch below the two color stitch and pull it up on the needle and ktog, then knit around. Next round, knit all.

#1

#2

Overall, I think that I prefer technique #2. Obviously I need to tighten up some stitches (especially the red) before I weave in the ends, but I think it looks a little neater than #1 and it also feels easier to do for some reason. Personally, I don't like the looseness of the slipped stitch in technique #1.

So, that's my opinion on the Jogless stripe techniques that I've tried. Your mileage may vary of course. :)

Some cuteness for you:

Today was school picture day and the Youngest was all dolled up for it. I had a devil of a time getting him to stand still for this pic:

More Striping and Rushing Around

I've gotten to the striping point on the second sleeve. This sweater is looking a little funny right now. It resembles a scarf more than a sweater. But it's coming along.

No Yarnballs Left Behind!

Charmichan left me a suggestion for working more jogless stripes. She said,

" Try this jogless join technique:
"To minimize the jog where colors change when working stripes in-the-round, work one round with the new color, remove beginning-of-the-round marker, lift the previous color st below the next new color st onto the left-hand needle; k2tog (lifted st of previous color and first st of new color), replace the marker. The beginning of the round will move 1 st to the left at each color change." "

I'm planning on doing that next. I want to see which of the two techniques works best. I know there are others as well, but I'm starting with these. Thanks Charmichan for the suggestion!

I've been absolutely scrambling today. The Youngest and I are going out of town tomorrow and The Eldest and his Dad are going camping. Laundry has to be done, packing still needs doing, errands had to be run and the Eldest went to a birthday party this afternoon. The whole week has been like that for some reason. Rush, rush, rush! Hopefully the weekend will slow down at least a little.

See ya tomorrow!

Rushing!

I'm just dashing in to say a very quick hello. I've been playing tag with two doctors and one pharmacy today trying to get The Eldest's stomach ailments fixed. I've also got three wild boys wrecking the upstairs as I write. (A neighbor had an emergency and I'm watching her child for a bit.)

So, to make a long story short - I'll have a sweater update for you tomorrow!

Wish me luck with the wild ones!

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!

Tubey!

Tomorrow is the last day of the Contest! Thanks so much for everyone who has participated. I apologize if I have not gotten back with all of you in some form or other. I will, I'm just slow thanks to all the sickness floating around this house right now. The Eldest is beginning week four of a stomach ailment. He has lab work being done now to pinpoint what's wrong and hopefully we'll get this thing cleared up.


I cast on for the Tubey Sweater from Knitty yesterday. I had a hard time wrapping my head around the sizing directions. You measure across your back from the center of one armpit to the other with your arms forward. I got that measurement (22") and went back to look at the instructions again. I heard that this sweater runs rather large, so I'm making the XS in this one. I just couldn't figure out where that 22" measurement went.

I ended up casting on for the wrong measurement cause I misread the pattern. She has the across back measurement as 19[20, 21.5, 23, 24.5]. She also has the cast on numbers as 50[55,60,65,70]. I guess that I saw the 21.5 in the middle and thought that I should cast on 60. Duh. I was supposed to cast on 50 and then do stockinette for 21.5 (or 22 really.) So after about an inch or so I realized what i had done, ripped it all out and began again. I'm feeling rather blond right now, thank you very much.

This is where I stand as of carpool time at school this afternoon:


I'm going to do stripes similar to what she has in the picture on the pattern, but I'm going to do a coral red, turquoise blue and lime green stripes along with the basic black of the sweater. I'm currently going cross-eyed working with the black.

This is the part that goes across the back. I'll add sleeves next and will have a cute shrug when those are finished. Then all I have to do will be to add the tube part for the body. We'll see how long this project takes me. Lately, everything I touch seems to take forever.

Better Now!

I am now back in the land of the living. The whole household spent the weekend lounging around and being sick together. Wasn't a lot of fun really, especially with the hubby. He turns in to the biggest "woe is me" baby you've ever seen when he gets sick.

I did do some cat stacking though:




I also came to a few conclusions, mainly about the W sweater:

This project is now headed for the frog pile. If I ever decide to do another sweater that is knit side to side with short rows - please just shoot me.

Things that went wrong:

1. The yarn chosen was incorrect for the pattern. Evidently it was not meant to be used for sweaters of this type. Something more drape-y and less bulky would be good for this pattern. This yarn would be better suited to hats or afghans.
   

2. The finished edges were way too untidy and ugly in my opinion.

3. The v-neck front came down way too low and the fabric was actually too stretchy.
   

The short rows were actually easy and I didn’t mind doing them. What I did dislike was not being able to try the sweater on as I went so that I could adjust for fit. Definitely will not be making this pattern again.

I also started some sweater de-constructing. I have this old sweater, and when I say old, I do mean old. It still had shoulder pads! Anyway, it's very soft and I want to rework it somehow. So I began taking it apart. It's taking forever. It's very tiny 2 ply yarn, lace weight-ish. I was going to make a shawl with it, but I think that I'm going to split it into 1 ply and make it go further and use it to ply some of my other hand spun yarn with it.

Take a gander at what's in it:
30% Cotton
22% Nylon
20% Rayon
13% Lambswool
10% Angora Rabbit
5% Cashmere

Now are you getting how soft it is? Who knows if it really does have cashmere in it, I don't, but I also don't care. I'm going to overdye it from soft dove gray to something happier and ply that stuff up.

I've also cast on for a new sweater but I'll tell you more about that tomorrow!