Half a Sweater

I'm feeling much better. Antibiotics are wonderful things. Thanks to those who chimed in to wish me well.

I finished the lace portion of Bella Paquita and attached it to the top of the sweater. This part of the grafting went much better than attaching the sleeves did. Not sure why, but I'm much happier with how it looks than how the sleeves look.

Look Mom - Half a sweater!

On to the next portion. I am built like a pear (and I freakin' hate it, but that's neither here nor there,) so based on my measurements, I decided to use the small size top and medium size bottom to the sweater. Lord how I wish I could say the opposite, but child rearing has done me no favors.

Now if I had known how much math was involved with knitting, I might not have taken it up as a hobby. really. It's simple math that always messes with my brain, not the hard stuff. Why me? Why was it so hard today for me to figure out how to get the number of stitches I had on each side, front and back, down to the starting number of sts. on each side? Why? It's not hard, but for some reason my brain refused to wrap itself around these numbers. A calculator wasn't even that much help. And to top it off, I had to figure it out and make sure that the k2p2 ribbing came out even. The first time I did it I ended up with a k2k2p2k2 kind of thing. Not pretty. It was a total BLONDE afternoon.

I like being blonde. When I do stupid things, I get to blame it on my haircolor. :)


I got some new sock yarn in from Knitpicks. I'm playing around with a new sock design idea (cross your fingers that I can figure it out) and it was a good excuse for getting in these colors:

Black, white, pink, soft yellow and green

Narcissist Boy

In my family room there is a large mahogany armoire with bevelled mirrors on the doors. This was a gift from my father in law to us a few Christmas' ago. In it's found condition (on the side of the road) it had many coats of green paint and was damaged. He took it and refinished/refurbished it for us. It is now one of the centerpieces of our home.

It is also the favored piece of furniture of the Youngest. The boy has a great imagination and his twin (one good lookin' guy) lives in the mirrors. He speaks twin speak to him and they have a great time dancing together.

Narcissist Boy

You'll notice in the pic that there is also a little tykes play cube w/ slide in the family room. He loves this thing and with being stuck so much inside with the cold weather, we brought it in. He will also stand on it in front of the mirrors and try out poses with his favorite phrases too.

It looks like I've got an inner ear problem. I've been having bouts of dizziness. It's kinda like getting a really good buzz, but without all the fun parts. I'm on antibiotics and have 8 days left. Hopefully these will fix the problem and I won't have to go back to the doctor. Meanwhile, the lace is being repaired very slowly. This sickness has really thrown me off. Knitting is not getting done, but neither is clothes mountain being climbed nor dish mountain. I have managed to make a meal or two and chase the Youngest around, but that's about it. Somebody pray for me. please?

Stupid freakin' cold meds.

I'm going to blame it on the cold in my head and the medications to cure the symptoms of said cold.

The last few days have been a total blur for me. Everyone else had a weekend. I had fog. Even when the cold remedies wore off I was still in a fog. I still persevered with the lace work on the Bella Paquita. And let me tell you, it was agonizingly slow lace work. I shouldn't have even bothered really, but I have someplace to be on Feb. 16th and I want to wear this thing when I go.

I was so proud, I had finished all the lace work despite the cold. Heh. yeah, right.

Once I sobered up, I took another look at the pretty lace. And, well, it's not so pretty. Tonight I get to rip back two repeats to fix the very noticeable hole in that lace. A d*mn twist is missing and I don't have a clue how it happened since I don't remember much of the past few days anyway. Wanna see it?

Stupid freakin' cold meds.

Belly Button Knits is having a contest

Hey guys! Belly Button Knits is having a contest. Go over there and guess her knitting secret or tell her one of yours and you win a prize. Make sure and mention that I told you about it. Contest ends Monday Jan 28th!

My Good Buddy Mr. Nyquil

Note to self for future reference: When spending quality time with your good buddy Mr. Nyquil, perhaps you should avoid trying to set sleeves into the sweater you are constructing.

What did I do try to do last night? I finished knitting the sleeves (two at same time) and began setting them into the sweater. Care to guess how that went? My buddy, Mr. Nyquil (remember him?) was a huge help in this endeavor. The kind of huge that a two year old might be with a needle and yarn. As a matter of fact, that's what it looked like. It looked like I had given the Youngest the project and said - go for it!

So. This afternoon I took another go at it and it's much better. Far from perfect, but better. I've decided that I really don't like doing sleeves this way. Next time I will alter the pattern and pick up the stitches and do sleeves in the round in order to avoid this whole disaster.

Next time, I will invite Mr. Dayquil over and forbid Mr. Nyquil from being in the vicinity of the entire project.



Tonight I will begin on the lace and we'll see what happens. Wish me luck, being sick really sucks.

On the way to the LYS

Kids crack me up, they really do. I know I've mentioned that the Youngest has a vicious temper and he's very demanding, but what do you expect of a 2 year old?

In the past couple of days he's learned some new words and phrases. One of those being the word please. I've been working very hard to get that one through his little brain. The other one he picked up on his own. I am forever telling him to "wait a minute" when he is demanding something. In his world everything he wants must be done NOW.

So what did I hear today?

Today I was on the way to the LYS with him riding in the back of the minivan. At the top of his lungs he began fiercely screaming with his eyebrows all scrunched (he was deadly serious): "JEWESS.....INAMINUTE.....PEEZ!!!!!!"

Hurray! He said please while demanding his juice! Wait a sec, What was that in the middle? In a minute? I must have looked like a mad woman driving down the interstate and laughing like crazy.



I got some new toys while at the LYS:

Sock Blockers!

Noro Sock Yarn!

The price of the sock yarn almost killed me. I hate spending that kind of money on only one skein of yarn, but hey, it was a gift certificate that I was spending so that makes it okay. Right?

I'm going to finish those sleeves for Bella tonight if I have to stay up all night to do it. I went and got sick again and have been nurse-maiding the Youngest while he's sick and was just wiped out last night. I got zero knitting done, but that won't be the case tonight. I promise!

quick post

This is a quick evening post for today guys. I've got issues with one sick kid with a two year old evil temper, one kid that needs a serious discussion and discipline for lying and damaging other peoples' property (minor, nothing serious) and one Pain in the behind spouse to deal with. Mommy/Wifey is not a happy camper tonight.

The sleeves for Bella are progressing slowly for obvious reasons. If I can ever get two seconds alone to myself tonight, I might make headway on them.

Drinks anyone?

My Weekend

We got snow this weekend and it was so beautiful. We dodged a big bullet and got little to no ice. Usually when we get snow in the south, it snows a couple of inches and then melts part way and then everything is coated with ice. This makes the driving especially treacherous. Snow good, ice bad. So we got really lucky this time around.



The kids were thrilled of course. They got to have snowball fights. All was well and good until the Youngest got a snowball in the face and then things went downhill from there. To make matters worse, it was his dad that did it to him.

Mean 'Ol Daddy.

I have finished the first part of the top of the Bella Paquita Sweater. I'm working on the sleeves now and the lace will follow after the sleeves are attached. I'd be doing better on this sweater if I could frickin' read directions though. Obviously, not only math are hard, but reading are hard as well.

Bella Paquita w/o lace or sleeves

You'll notice that you've seen this yarn before. I frogged the minimalist cardigan I was working on and decided to use it for this project. The cardigan just wasn't doing anything for me and this yarn is so lovely I just couldn't waste it.



I'm joining in on Blogstalker 3 from over at the Knitty Coffeeshop forum. This week is all about something in your favorite color, which just happens to be red. So here's an action shot of a two year old boy playing with my red Cluster Stitch bag:

Knitting and the Alphabet

The Meema Files is running a really fun creative contest. A combination of knitting and the alphabet. Read more about it here.

Here was my entry: (slightly PG-13 rated)

A is for advanced, something I'm not.
B is for blocking, whether a sweater or sock.

C is for cables, some small, some fat.
D is for D*mn, my yarn became a victim of my cat.

E is for extra, as in stitches I've got.
F is for frogging, I get extras a lot.

G is for gauge, it can cause me to age.
H is for hooch, for when knitting drives me to rage.

I is for idiot, which sometimes I feel.
J is for joy, Look! I turned a heel!

K is for knit, more fun than purl.
L is for lost stitch, makes me want to hurl.

M is for Make one, occasionally on both sides.
N is for not much, asked how much I've spent on yarn, sometimes I've lied.

O is for object, finished or un.
P is for project, boy this sure is fun!

Q is for quick, mittens, scarves and hats.
R is for reevaluate, the adoption of the yarnball chasing cat.

S is for SEX, Stash Enhancement eXpedition.
T is for trip, to gain more yarn attrition.

U is for unstoppable, knitting is such an addiciton
V is for vowing, when my friends vow to give me a knitting intervention.

W is for weather, Oh good, it's snowing, I can stay home and knit.
X is for Xstatic, my hand knit gift was a hit!

Y is for yelp, I stabbed myself with a needle, now go get help!
Z is for the zzz's I can get, after a project well knit.

Bella Paquita for beginning chart knitters

My needles came in and now Bella Paquita begins!

I'd been waiting on my KnitPicks order to arrive on my doorstep and it finally happened yesterday afternoon. Yeah!

I cast on today for Bella Paquita for the Sexy Knitter's Club KAL. Technically I'm jumping the gun as the KAL is not set to begin until the 21st. I'm not sure that 3 days head start is really going to matter. I'm not a super quick knitter, so we'll see what happens.

I immediately began reading and then re-reading Marnie's pattern. My comfort zone is really with long drawn written out directions, not charts. Guess what this pattern is all about? Charts!

So here's what I did to start. I'm working on the Top chart in a size Small.

Reading charts is a little like reading Chinese (okay, I'm exaggerating, but bear with me) you need to start at the bottom and read right to left.

First thing I needed to do was to count how many sts to cast on. That would be 128.

Second, I wanted to know how many rows total that I would be working on: 69.

Third, there are decreases on either side of the pattern. I needed to decide what kind of decreases I wanted on each side. I chose to do ktogs on side A and and ssls on side C. You can choose as you like.

Fourth, to help me keep everything straight, I marked up the chart a bit (I'll show you that in a sec.)

Fifth, I marked what kind of stitch I would be doing in what direction on the chart. This helps me know which way to look on the chart. This won't always help with other stitch patterns, but it works on stockinette done flat.

Sixth, I marked what rows I would need to decrease on in a little chart at the top.

Seventh, I know that on row 23 I will need to move from one ball of yarn to three and marked that in the chart.

Here's my working chart notes:

Click on pic to enlarge (edited due to me being an idiot - math are hard!)

Now to experts with charts these steps will seem a no brainer. But I know that others, like me, have difficulty with charts and I hope that by doing this "out loud" so to speak, I can help the chart newbies.

I got the chart written up and then ran into the provisional cast-on. This is officially my first provisional cast on. You can go to Knittinghelp.com's cast on page and scroll down for directions on the invisible provisional cast on.

I cast on the 128 and began knitting. I placed markers between A and B and then B and C. For those who don't know, you can work this section in one piece if you want. You begin from the bottom up. You ignore the white space in the chart from rows 1 to 22. Pretend it's negative space and doesn't really exist. (ETA - except for the increases, don't forget those, they're kinda important :) ) easy peasy. When you get to row 23 though, you need to work each part, A B & C, in separate pieces which calls for separate balls of yarn.

Then, I had an attack of poor self confidence. I began second guessing myself. What if I was all wrong? So what did I do? I emailed Marnie and asked her to hold my hand. She answered back really fast and calmed me back down and sent me back out to knit. Whew!

The only problem I had after that (so far) was the 2 yo. grabbing the ball of yarn, throwing it and eventually unwinding it. That one, I can handle. :)

Cluster Stitch Shoulder Bag Finished!

I finished the Crochet Cluster Stitch Shoulder Bag last night. Although I don't have a pic of it, it is lined with some cute contemporary red fabric that has little white hearts drawn on it.




Tips for working on this pattern:

How to do a Cluster Stitch in this pattern: Yarn over before you put the hook into the center of the SC (Single Crochet) stitch. Then, grab the yarn draw up about one inch worth and pull it back through the loop. Do this again for as many times as the directions specify. Then you will put the hook back through the SC stitch, grab the yarn one more time and pull it back through all the loops on the hook. One last chain stitch will gather the loops all together to make the cluster. Your first cluster is made! Now, skip the next SC and do the cluster again in the following SC. Basically you'll be doing a Cluster in every other SC.

Also pay attention to the X times more directions. You don't want to be a few rows too short at the end of the pattern. Printing out the pattern and placing little tick marks on it is an easy way of keeping up with how many rows you have completed.

It may seem tedious, but going back and counting your sts in your row fairly often will guarantee that you keep the 29 sts that you are supposed to have. You won't believe how easy it is to leave one stitch off a row and add two others onto another row.

I hope you enjoy this pattern as much as I have!

Snow!

We got SNOW today! I know you people up North and in Canada and Russia think this is no big deal, but it is here in the deep South! These pics were taken early on, we got about and inch or two of snow later. Snow only comes once maybe twice (and that's pushing it) a year here. The kids were so excited.

The back yard

Blurry back porch. Looks much more focused in person, I promise.

The Youngest trying to catch and eat snow flakes.

More proof of early snow

Resolutions Contest Results

The Contest is now officially over. I'm feelin' sorta sad about that. This was so much fun! Thanks to everyone who participated!

Would ya like to know the winner?

Well, just to string you a long for a second, I'll tell you the resolution that I've already broken. Mine actually started a couple of weeks before the end of the year, but I'm counting it anyway.

I resolved to cut out all the sugar that I've been drinking in my hot tea and coffee. At one time I was putting two to three teaspoons of sugar in my mug. When you multiply that by how many mugs of hot drink it takes to keep me warm and happy during the day, well, let's just say it was way too much. I got a sugar substitute and got to it. This was so hard for me. I hate the taste of all the substitutes. I have yet to find one I like. I tried Splenda and Equal both. I prefer Equal, but it still yucky. It's easier to take in coffee, but not tea. I've already blown the resolution with the tea, but the coffee is still getting by with Equal. Oh well.

So there you have it. You are not the only ones who have little to no willpower.

As soon as I get her address details, the following:


will be sent post haste to:

KNITASAUR!

Congratulations Knitasaur!

Contest ends tomorrow!

Don't forget - the Contest ends tomorrow. The winner will be announced on the 16th. Good Luck!

Shea

Mohawk Beanie

Now I know why I see so many hats and bags and small projects on everyone's blogs. The instant gratification of completing a project in just a few days is so awesome.

This is not my usual thing. I tend toward sweaters and socks mainly. I'm taking part in the KAL over at the Sexy Knitters Club for the Bella Paquita sweater. However, I realized that I'm missing some needles that I need. I headed to KnitPicks and ordered some more, but now I'm at the mercy of the US postal service.

Thus, the dog sweater and hat kick that I seem to be on. I need fast, easy and fun projects to while away the time until I can start Bella.

That all being said, I finished the Mohawk Beanie for the Eldest on Sunday afternoon. As goofy as he looks in it, He is totally loving it. He couldn't wait to get to school to tell everyone his Mom had made him a hat (and I heard him do it too.)

Showin' off the 'hawk.

My wannabe skateboardin' punk rocker

It ended up being a bit too big for him as you can see in the second pic. I adjusted it by sewing a small seam in the back and now it fits perfectly.

I found a few errors in the pattern, but if you count carefully, you can correct them as you go. On her site she also has directions for doing this hat in the round, but they're not very clear. You are going to have to carry the fuzzy yarn on the inside. I don't think I could stand to have that much fuzzy stuff on the inside of a hat, so I made this one flat instead.

But this is perfect for silly 7 year old boys!

I-Matey Dog Coat

I finished the I-Matey Dog Coat. This is so cute. It's perfect for my little "Bad Girl".

I made two changes to what the pattern called for.

First, I used acrylic yarn. I refuse to use good yarn on a dog that's going to go out and roll in poop and GA red clay. Acrylic is so much more washer and dryer friendly.

Second, I used two size 6 circs. instead of the dpns called for. I seem to be allergic to the use of double pointed needles. yuck!

Aargh Matey!

Tough Girl!

Coolest Tin Evar!

I escaped from the mad house this evening. It was time to get away. Too much time around the testosterone poisoned house (one hubby, two boys) is never a good thing for a chic. I took off for JoAnn's and threatened to stay there til closing time. It was that or pack a bag full of books, yarn and needles and move to Tahiti. Actually, that doesn't sound so bad. hmmmm......

Anyway, while I was there I came across this little tin of green apple mints. I fell in love and had to have it. How cute! And it can hold my stitch markers when the all the tiny little mints are gone!

Coolest. Tin. Evar.

So now that I'm back in the testosterone filled atmosphere I am cozying up to a new drink that I created. Sprite, Triple Sec, Absolute Peach. It tastes like summer. Yum! Have no clue as to proportions. At the time this new drink was concocted all I wanted to do was pour. Measurements are for the birds.

Intarsia Central

There's only 6 days left of the Contest. If you haven't left your resolution yet, better hurry!


Being the complete idiot with crafty projects that I am, last night I decided to take on another project that I had no idea how to do. Intarsia. You'd think that I would be happy with the few things that I know how to do with knitting and would combine them and make something wonderful and quick. Well. I don't do things the easy way and let's just leave it at that.

Usually when I tackle something new, I become the master researcher. I learn all sorts of things that I never wanted to know about each project that I do. I learn to ad nauseum. But! I didn't do that this time. I had a pattern, I had yarn, I could do this.

Heh. Heh.

I just about pulled my hair out last night. Truly. I was wading in the deep end without a paddle. I read and re-read the pattern and then re-read it again. It didn't take long, it's a short pattern.

I got up and went to the computer to verify what I thought they were asking me to do. I was right. Yeah! So, I began. and stopped. verified at the computer. began again. Every row that I did was done in this fashion. It was incredibly tedious. I gave up and went to bed.

This morning, I logged into Knitty and did more research and then googled some more. By mid-afternoon I was ready to tackle it again. And this time the project started to really move.

It's not all completely intarsia. I did a little bit of stranding in the middle of the intarsia pattern. I just didn't feel like that part of the pattern warranted me started yet another freakin' strand of color there. Other than that, I think I've figured it out.

I can honestly say that I don't hate intarsia. It's okay, but I probably won't be doing tons of these projects in the future.

I am proud of myself somewhat. One of my knitting plans (I refuse to say resolutions) was to work with more than one color of yarn this year. I've tackled all sorts of things in the past year: lace, people sweaters, dog sweaters, socks, stoles, shawls, etc. But it's all been with one color/colorway of yarn. I can now say I've done it.

The project will take another couple of days, but here's the current state of the knit (from the back) all laid out on the table next to my cup of mint tea next to my big comfy chair where I like to sit while I knit:

Lot's of pink and black!

I'll see you tomorrow. I'm gonna go dive back in now.

Roxie's Impersonation

Roxie's Impersonation of a Drowned Rat:

Where's all the cute fluff?

Roxie says "I am not amused."

Larry Boy Cake

Thank you to everyone who has commented so far in the contest! I haven't been able to reply to everyone yet, but I will. Read on and you'll see why:

We're still recovering from the crud that we picked up at Christmas. The kids didn't have near the trouble with it that the hubby and I did. We've been walking dead for several days now. I started perking up just in time to panic about the Youngest's Birthday party. I'm still coughing my head off, but other than that, I feel fine. Hubby's voice is much more deep than usual. He lost his voice one night and it was so funny. I've never seen him do that before. Anyway.

Friday afternoon I decided to make the Youngest a birthday cake. He's really into Larry Boy from Veggie Tales so I figured that would be perfect. I really did not want to work with icing bags or tips. Nor did I want to just smooth icing onto it. I decided that the best thing would be to make a fondant cake. The only problem? I had never worked with fondant before.

Well, God bless the internet. I'm just sayin'.

Using this site and this picture of a cake that someone else did with fondant, I began. The recipe was super simple and tastes fairly good for fondant. I will definitely be using this again. All you need is a lot of powdered sugar and mini marshmallows. Sounds yucky huh? and sticky.

This was so much fun. I felt like I was playing with modeling clay. The hardest part was creating the fondant and adding the color to it. My kitchen aid mixer is mega tough though and handled the job nicely. I didn't have tons of time to spend kneading everything in. The birthday party was going to be on Saturday.

I wish I had taken some step by step pics. But since I was learning something new and didn't have much time, the camera had to stay on the shelf where it's kept.

To get the Larry Boy shape, I baked a 9 x 13 sheet cake and let it cool on Thursday. Then on Friday afternoon, I trimmed off all four corners to make a rocket/cucumber shape. The extra was used to make the nose and the crest for his helmet. I used licorice for the belt. Fondant was used for everything else. A pizza cutter works great for trimming the fondant. I also used the lids from some of my spices to get the right circular shapes too. The plunger ears were made from cutting a piece of shortcake in two and coating them with red fondant icing.

Make sure you use some buttercream frosting on your cake before you put the fondant on it. It acts like glue and holds the fondant on the cake. I had to use extra for the licorice. It really didn't want to stay where I put it.

Here's how it turned out. Please forgive my camera, it likes to make all dark purple turn to blue and I haven't figured out how to correct it yet.

Meet Larry Boy

See the Youngest's Reaction? I did good.