Sewing Fear

I wish I wasn't feeling about twelve kinds of stoopid right now. I wish I were a brave and fearless seamstress. Alas, I'm not.

Thank God for the endless source of sewing knowledge that is my Mom. I just avoided a horrible mistake by second guessing myself and calling her up and begging for correct answers.

This is where I was an hour ago in the process:


Not very damned far, I admit. I'm trying to double check everything and it's slowing me up terribly. I now have everything cut out and will begin pinning and sewing. Endora the dress dummy will finally be used as her maker originally intended. I'm going to pin and check the fit before sewing.

I seriously need some "sewing for dummies" lessons, or I at least need to sew more often to get my confidence up. It scares the wits out of me.


With knitting or crochet, if you screw up, you rip and begin again. No harm done, just wasting lots of time, and I'm okay with that. If you screw up in sewing clothing (especially the cutting part) you might as well dump everything in the trash. There's not much room for fudging and no room really for going back. In my past experiences anyway. Now when I've quilted or made bags, yes, I could go back and fudge the heck out of it and make it work. But in sewing clothes, if you want the garment to fit, no fudging.

What is it about this whole sewing thing that makes a college grad gibber in fear?

Sewing!

Once again I have wrecked my dining room/office/craft room. This time, with sewing crap. I have yet to have more than two days of this room being clean. There's always some project scattered everywhere and then the kids come barreling through leaving destruction (toys/shoes/socks/etc) in their wake. Never a dull moment around here, or a clean one for that matter.

I'm performing in a show in two weeks time and it's a medley of different era songs. We're responsible for getting our own costumes. I've got a poodle skirt lined up for one, and I'm making a cute little A-line dress for the sixties one. I'm totally getting some go-go boots too, I've always wanted a pair of those. My mom should be shot for getting rid of hers. I mean, come on now, didn't she think her daughter would want those? :) I don't have a clue what to do for clothing from the 1700s (Les Miserables). Any ideas?

This is what I'm putting together for the 60s costume:

(the one with the flowers)

The dress will be black, but the flowers will be done in the fabrics in the photo.
I'm hoping that this will all work out. A fabulous seamstress, I am not. My mom? yes. Me? Not so much.

Meanwhile, I've wrecked the room again. Everything is spread out all over the place. Fabric, ironing board, flowers, toys, basically everywhere.

Does anybody even use a formal dining room nowadays? We might use this room once a year for dining. Mostly it's my office/crafting area and I swear that this one little room is used more than 90% of the rest of our house. We might as well live in a two room hut. Cause, where Mommy is, that's where two boys, two cats and three dogs all want to be at the same time.

A sleeve

The Sleeve, it groweth:


The long suffering arm model is The Eldest. How scary is it that a sleeve meant for me fits on an 8 year old that's eating us out of house and home (weighs 75lbs) and already comes up to my chin in height? I'm 5'6, about average, so not way tall, but still. Children are not supposed to grow that fast. Are they?

Dino knitting photograpy

To amuse the Youngest, we had a dinosaur photoshoot today to showcase the owls progress.

But I seem to have cut one of them's head off: (I think I was channeling my Mother-In-Law, she cuts everybodys heads off in pics.)
But at least you can see the waist decreases and increases at the back of the sweater fairly well. I like this method of inc/dec at the back. Lately, everything that I've made has had the shaping at the sides. This method gives my tummy a little more room. It's not the size it once was, bless it's heart, but maybe a little weight watchers will help. To the left, under the headless dino is the first sleeve.

I've been working very slowly with this sweater. Last week was packed with school conferences with teachers (one good - The Eldest, one not as good - The Youngest - but what else is new?), there was a basketball award ceremony to attend, boy scouts meeting, a rehearsal for upcoming musical at church and children's consignment sales to both shop, sell and work at, not to mention cooking dinner occasionally and watching my house go to pot in general. So if you were wondering where I disappeared to, there ya go. A bit busy.

Hopefully, and I'm saying this with fingers crossed, this week will be a tiny bit less busy.

Tertiary Yarn

So yesterday I mentioned that I had been spinning. There is a Ravelry "Spin-a-long" that has us spinning tertiary colors.

Here's a mini color theory lessons for you:

Primary colors - red, yellow, blue
Secondary colors - Mix any of two primary colors - ie: green, purple, orange
Tertiary colors - Mix one primary with one secondary - ie: red-violet, yellow-orange, red-orange, blue-green, etc.

In order to get my tertiary colors, I had to mix some scraps of roving(dyed with Kool-aid and Wilton's) that I had left from previous spinning adventures:




Then I got to mix them up, one primary and one secondary. Here's a pretty poor example, poor mainly in the photo quality, but still, it shows the mixing fairly well:


And then here are the singles, looking very unimpressive by themselves on the bobbin:


I opted not to Navajo ply as I had previously decided, mainly because I wanted enough yardage to do something with it. So I decided to spin some black singles and then 2 ply it up with the tertiary mix. I also threw in the primaries in three different places because I didn't like the color combinations without them.

Can I just say that I absolutely loooovvveee the result?


Now I wish I had more. damn.

After I finished, I still felt like playing with the spinning wheel. I had a bunch of different unplied singles just sitting around with no plan for any of them. Some are from a spinning study that I half-heartedly joined and never finished. Some were from when I first started spinning. None of them by themselves were long enough to do anything with. Therefore, I decided, in an artyarny sort of way, to combine them
all in a sloppy 3 ply.

This is what came from it:

Click to enlarge for details

I'm really curious to knit something with this to see how it knits up. Should be interesting.

I only got about 130 yards off of both skeins, but it should be enough for some small fingerless mitts or a hat or something.

bummer

Well, I was going to show you some of the stuff that I've been working on, but my camera battery died. It (the camera) was residing in my purse and I think it got turned on without my knowing it and now the battery is d.o.a.

Which is, I suppose, okay since the knitting project doesn't look much different than it had previously. It's gained a few inches, but that's it. I've got about 2.5 inches to go before I begin the yoke section.

I've also been doing a little spinning. I'm working on blending different colors of roving to get tertiary (where you combine one pimary with one secondary) colors based on the monthly spin-a-long on Ravelry. Should turn out pretty cool (I hope.) All in all, it's been a great experiment with color blending with handcards.

So I can't show you those projects. bummer.

Last night, we had the last Monday night basketball event, yeah! It's really been cramping my blogging on Mondays. Anyway, They lined up a bunch of weight lifters as the entertainment. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they really were entertaining. The kids absolutely loved them. The Eldest (on the far left of the kids) got picked to become weight for this guy in red who holds some kind of record for bench pressing over 600 lbs:



This morning, I came **this** close to getting the drum carder that I've been wanting. Someone beat me to it by a hair, danggitall. I would have saved about $75 bucks too. I'm still trying to sell stuff to get the money for it. I'm so close, it's killing me.

Carrot-A-Rangs

Betcha didn't know that Batman has a Carrot-a-rang did ya?

I'm not sure why he's having an obsession with Carrots right now and I'm not asking. If he's happy, playing quietly and not throwing tantrums, he can have all the carrots he wants to play with. Not one of them is making down his throat, but that's okay with me. Some days you have to pick your fights and this is not one of those days.

Have a great weekend!

The Faux Woven Scarf

Sorry for missing yesterday's post. I got into a major depressive funk and just wasn't feeling up to it. I also didn't pick up my knitting either. I don't knit well when I'm upset or depressed for some reason. But I'm feeling much better today!

This helped. He's been walking around for the past hour with a carrot saying "What's up doc?" over and over and over...


I've got an older project to show you today though. I dug this up a couple of days ago when it was cold:

Click to enlarge for details

It's a Faux Woven Scarf. It's so easy and fun to make. You don't use any knitting needles or crochet hooks to make it either. You use a sewing machine!

I gathered together a bunch of odds and ends of different yarns and ribbons, trying to get a good ratio of color to texture with a base color of black. I know there's some lion brand homespun and some novelty eyelash yarn in there along with some thin black ribbon as well.

The magic ingredient in making one of these is some water soluble stabilizer. Sulky makes a great one. This is commonly used with embroidery machines to stabilize the fabric that is being embroidered.

Now, get out your sewing machine and thread. That's the last of what you need to get started.

Figure out how long and wide you want your scarf to be. Cut your stabilizer to that length and width. Then, cut your pieces of yarn and ribbon to the same length.

Begin sewing the pieces lengthwise onto the stabilizer using a zigzag stitch on your sewing machine. I used black thread to coordinate with the other pieces that I had chosen.

Vary the space in between each of the pieces that you sew on. You want this to look very loosely woven in order to get the look above. Of course, no one says you have to match it exactly. It's your scarf, play with it until you get the look you want!

Once you have filled the stabilizer's entire length all the way across and the yarn and ribbon feel fairly stable on it, you can begin with the horizontal stitching. Change your stitch to a straight stitch. Beginning at the top of the scarf, start stitching across. You are going to stitch all the way down the length of the scarf. Again, vary the length in between your rows and make sure these stitches go on top of every piece of yarn and ribbon.

Don't worry if your stabilizer has bunched up a bit, you're not going to be looking for perfection here and it's going to disappear in the next step anyhow.

Once you have completed the sewing part of the scarf, it's time to get it wet. Run it under warm water and dissolve the stabilizer completely. I used acrylic yarns for this, so I didn't have to be gentle with it. If you use wool, handle it with care in order not to felt it! Although, that could look cool too with this technique. I might have to try it sometime. :)

Spread it out on a towel or other blocking surface to dry completely.

There! Simple huh?

As always, if you have any questions on this technique, let me know. I'll be glad to answer.

Worry about Owls

The Eldest's last basketball practice of the season was last night, and I actually had a pretty good time. While I was sitting there working on the Owls sweater, I looked up and noticed a small crowd of little kids around me, watching me knit.

They started asking questions and before I knew it, I was teaching two four year old little girls the knit stitch. They were so cute. I'm sure once they walked away they forgot what I showed them, but maybe later on they'll remember the strange lady that showed them what knitting was while their brothers played basketball and they'll want to take up the hobby. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.

I was working on the sweater this morning while watching the show Treasure Quest on Discovery.com. I'm such a fan of that show. It's a lot of fun to watch. I'm into archaeology and treasure hunting stuff and love shows like that. So there I was knitting and I looked down at my project and started getting worried.

I'm not used to making a bulky sweater and this one looked awfully small. It felt tight and on the needles, looked way too small for me. I'm making the S/M size. I wanted a little ease built into the sweater to accommodate my nice little poochy tummy. Camouflage is your friend. (I'm sure exercise and dieting are too, but unlike Janice, who's an exercise fiend, exercise and dieting and I are just barely slight acquaintances, not really true friends.) Maybe I'm allergic to things that are healthy?

I ran a lifeline through the loops and put it onto my friend Endora. Have I told you how much I'm enjoying having Endora around? Yes, I could try it on my body, but it's nice to put it on her and walk around and get different perspectives on how the sweater is coming along. I even got out the destructions (instructions for most people) and a tape measure to make sure that me and my gauge were going to be happy with the results so far and guess what?


I'm pleased to say that my eyes must have been playing tricks on me. Fits fine and there's still a tiny bit of ease. Phew!

OMG! SNOW!

Yesterday, out of the blue, we got a mini-blizzard. When I left the house to go to church we had rain with a smidge of sleet mixed in. When I left an hour and a half later, there was at least three inches of snow on my car. Talk about weird.

We almost never get snow here. At the most we get one snow a year with about two inches accumulation. We got over three yesterday in an hour! That may not mean much to the people above the Mason Dixon line, but here, it's an event of huge proportions.

The kids bugged the snot out of me until I let them go play in it. It took the Eldest about 10 minutes before he had decided that he had had enough and he came racing into the house. We had to drag the Youngest inside. He could care less about physical discomfort.

Here's what it looked like on my drive back from church. Yes, Mom, I know that I shouldn't have done this, but I did still have two hands on the wheel as I clicked the pic.

I also did something really stupid. When I got home the car looked like this:


I pulled into the garage and went inside, stupidly forgetting that all that snow would melt and that the garage floor would be flooded. The hubby had a primo fit over the small flood. :)

Thanks to the folks who totally vindicated my knitting hatred! The dreaded Zara Cabled Pullover thingy has now been frogged and I've begun my Owls sweater. Details to come tomorrow.

A Knitting Quandary

It's nasty rainy here today in Marietta, GA and we're supposed to get even more. Two of the testosterone members of this household have decided that it would be great to go camping this weekend in it.

I've come to the conclusion that Testosterone = Stoopidity. That leaves me stuck with the last little testosterone filled menace. I'm going to try and pawn him off on his grandmother for a while tomorrow to get a little peace and quiet.

Anyway, the Youngest and I decided to go look for yarn today in that nasty rain. I want to make the owls sweater that is taking the knitting world by storm. It's a bulky yarn and I don't have any of that in my house, so an excursion was called for. We went to Joann's and found nothing. Then it was over to the lys and we found more nothing. Wasted all that gas for what? nuthin'. :sigh:


So I have this sweater that I've been working on for far too long and it has a far way to go before it's finished. Remember yesterday's discussion?

Do I:

a) keep plugging at it, it'll look great on me when I'm 84.
b) burn it. the red color will look lovely in the fireplace.
c) frog it to use in another sweater that's more appealing.

That's the quandary that I have at the moment.

You know, if I frogged the bajillion cable sweater and held two strands together, it would make a lovely owl sweater, wouldn't it?

What does do you think? Please, if you lurk here occasionally, come out and give your opinion. I'm feeling guilty about the hours already put into that damn sweater, but I don't want to keep on working on something I'm beginning to hate and that hurts my wrists.

I think I need help. Perhaps a beverage would help?

The cursed project

So I picked up my long time nemesis, the Zara Cabled Tunic, again. I got about two more measly inches done before my wrists began aching again.

This cable stuff should be easy for me at this point, right? Am I tensing up my wrists? Holding them and my arms at a bad angle? I just can't figure it out.

You have no idea how badly I'm wavering between trying to get this thing finished or frogging the whole damn thing. It's kind of a love/hate relationship we have going at this point.

Anyone got any tips for working on cables without wrist pain?

I'm cabling without a cable needle. I've never learned how to cable with a needle and think this would slow me down worse than I'm going now on this thing. Maybe I'm getting tense everytime I have to pull the needle out of a couple of stitches, leave them loose and cross them before putting them back on the needle.

I did not have this trouble while working on Rogue. This is the only cable project that hurts me. It could be caused by the eleventy bajillion cables on this sweater. Couldn't it?

Is it me? the yarn? the cursed project? the world working against me? what. is. it. ???

Designing

Look-y what came in the mail today:


I joined Swaptree in order to swap some of my other craft books that I have no intention of ever re-using for some cool knitting stuff. I saw some stuff over on Ravelry that people had made using the inspiration in this book.

There's some truly wild stuff in this book. Designers do some odd things sometimes. Most of the stuff is unwearable "art", but the profiles on each of the designer/artists is pretty cool.

I can understand how the designers that make patterns and sell them either in books/magazines or self publishing make a living, but i can't for the life of me understand how the so-called artists do it. If I made some of the stuff in here and called it art, I'd be a laughing stock inside 20 minutes. really. There's no way people would "cotton" to this kinda stuff in the community where I live. There's very few artsy folk here, mainly snobby, wealthy "old Marietta" types. No, I don't qualify as one of those, nor would I want to, except for the wealthy part - that would be nice. :)

I have been tinkering with designing. Wealth will most never come to me by designing. But I am trying! Here's a pic of what I was working on (fingerless mitts) in my spare time in SC this past weekend:


The paper in the pic is pretty washed out, but you get the intent I hope. The knit on the right is a prototype that I wasn't quite happy with. I'm working on the corrected version now, but haven't been putting a whole lot of time into knitting the past few days. Give me a few days and I'll be back in the swing of things, I promise.

Rogue FO!

Sometimes I'm convinced that technology conspires against me.

My brother gave me all sorts of computer pieces and parts. So yesterday I took apart my pc to plug what I could use into it. Turns out, I couldn't use a dang thing. Either the stuff wasn't compatible with my pc or it couldn't be secured into the casing. I'm so bummed. So if you were wondering where I was yesterday, I had my pc spread all over my office.

Today, I took some pics of my finished Rogue Pullover. Guess what? More pc problems. But, I finally got things squared away and now bring you this:



I had help during the photoshoot as well:


He thought it was hilarious that Endora has now grown a purple head.

I finished piecing the sweater together on the drive up to Florence, SC this past weekend and got to wear it while I was there. Of course, not one person noticed, but I loved it. It fits like a glove and is incredibly flattering on.

Despite the trouble I had interpreting the pattern, I would highly recommend this pattern to anyone. It's fun, doesn't get boring at all and looks great on just about anyone. If you don't believe me, head over to Ravelry and look at the photos of over 900 finished Rogues and you'll become a believer too.

We had a great time seeing family, both boys behaved and so did my nephews and that alone, my friends, makes for a great weekend. I also got to do some geeky family genealogy stuff and visited a graveyard and got lots of info. about dead people. Doesn't that sound like fun to you? :)

Ta-Da?

Can you say "Ta-Da!" when the project isn't exactly together?


I've finished knitting the pieces and sewing in most of the loose ends. It's blocking right now under a heater vent and next to a dehumidifier, so I expect it to be dry fairly quickly.

I figure that I'll have five hours in the car in which to sew the sleeves and set them in. No problem, as long as the kids are somewhat behaving anyway.

I did find out while setting it out to be blocked that my row gauge was a bit off. The sleeves are about an inch too long. I'll either have to adjust it as I set the sleeves in and hem or I'll just have extra long sleeves to pull over my cold hands and fingers. Either way, it'll work out fine. I'm an optimistic soul, can ya tell?

So, Ta-Da!, sort of anyway. :)

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Last night, once the sick kiddos were abed and despite feeling like dog dirt myself, I managed to burn some midnight oil. I finished the hood of the Rogue Pullover and all of the cable section of one sleeve.

Today, after cleaning up vomit four times and bathing the Youngest as a consequence, I was allowed to sit back down to my knitting again.

This is the result:


The pic might be a bit blurry, but it is proof that the first sleeve is now complete!

I'm planning on slurping the Dayquil and knitting the night away if I have to. I'm bound and determined to finish this sweater before I leave to go out of town on Friday. That means I have to start and complete the rest of the sleeve today. My fingers might just fall off from the exercise they're going to be getting.

The pattern says to block the pieces before I put them together, but I may wait until the whole thing is finished instead due to time constraints. We'll see what I get done today.

I'm quite proud of what I've gotten done so far in such a short amount of time. Keep your fingers crossed that I'll get the rest done in time.

Rogue Sit-Rep

It started a few days ago with The Eldest. Then yesterday it was The Youngest. And today, it's me. We're falling like flies around here again. I'm on my last few days of antibiotics and dang if the kids didn't infect me with a cold virus. My throat's all scratchy again and I'm feeling achy.

At least this time I won't need my singing voice, that's a blessing. But the bad thing is, the kids and I are going out of town for the weekend to South Carolina. Go ahead and ask me how much I'm looking forward to being stuck in a car with an immature three year old boy with a cold for five hours. Go ahead, ask away. But I'm warning you, the answer probably won't be a positive one.

On to the knitting sit-rep: (that's a situation report for those not in the know)

I've gotten to the section where I need to graft the hood together. (If the kids will stop arguing for five minutes, I might get that finished tonight. I hate holidays and mid-winter breaks, I really do. Why can't we have year around school here? Or better yet, a year around public military boarding school? That way it'd be free.)

Here's the pic:

Somehow I'm thinking this won't get done by my Friday deadline. Still have to graft the together the hood and do the sleeves. ack. Of course I still have five hours of drive time, but then it won't get blocked in time to wear it. Oh well. I'll push on and hope for the best. Wish me luck!

Rogue for Dummies?

Good Morning! I think that this may officially be the earliest I've ever managed to post before. It's going to be a crazy day for me, so I thought I'd get a head start. I've got to be in two different schools at almost the same time today in order to make both my boys feel special. I'll probably end up a stark raving lunatic instead.

Anywho, I finished up the front and back shoulders of the Rogue Pullover. I put it on Endora so you could actually see the progress this time. If only my stomach were as flat as hers though. I hope I'm not disappointed when I put this on. All of my measurements match Endora's except for the tummy. I'm blaming my kids and cookies for that. Unless Lipo and scalpels are involved, it'll never be the same even if I starve myself. But hey, that's what girdles/Spanx are for, right?

This would make a rockin' tank top if you just finished up the front where it is and did it in a pretty linen/cotton combo.

I still think that this is one of the toughest patterns I've come across. Not because of the cables, but because of the way in which the pattern is written. It's not a pattern for dummies. I've been lucky so far in that I've guessed the next correct step. Don't get me wrong, this is a brilliant pattern that's going to have a brilliant outcome. I think that I'm the problem here. I would prefer more basic directions I think. I also think this pattern could do with a few more steps that have the words "you should have x stitches left on the needle at this stage." Maybe I'm just a slow learner.

Anyone else having or have had difficulty reading this pattern or is it just me?

Duplicate Stitch Is Your Friend

I have begun work on the center front of my Rogue Pullover. I'm not extremely happy with how it's turned out so far for a couple of reasons.

First, somewhere in my knitting, two knit stitches disappeared and then reappeared a couple of rows later. Don't have a clue where they went or why they returned.

Maybe one said to the other: "Let's step out for a cup of coffee for a few minutes while she completes a couple of rows, I'm tired of waiting around." The other one says "sure, let's do it, I'm running low on caffeine!"

Anyway, this is what it looked like:
See those two yellow arrows? They're pointing to the two holes that are missing the knit stitches. It may not be glaringly obvious in the photo above, but in real life, it is. So how to fix this?

Well, I'm basically a lazy person. I refuse to go back and rip out all those rows to fix this when I can cheat. Yes, I said cheat. You too, can go to the dark side occasionally when you don't want to rip. How? By duplicate stitching.

Duplicate stitching is where you duplicate a knit stitch by using a tapestry needle and yarn. Google it for directions, there's tons out there. Most of the time I've seen it used for decorative effects, not for cheating on fixing your stitches. But dang if it doesn't work for that too.

Here it is after the duplicate stitching:

Now, I don't advocate cheating on a regular basis mind you, just when the occasion warrants. Like this time when I'd have to go back a couple days worth of complicated cable creating. Is it perfect? No, but blocking it will help.

The second reason that I'm not happy is (and I don't have pics of it) there are some holes that are at the bottom of the front V. I went on Ravelry and found out that this is a common occurrence, but I just don't like it. I'll probably go back and duplicate stitch this area as well to clean it up a bit. I'll wait on that a bit before I do it. I will try and get pics of the before and after shots of that for you as well.

See? Cheating does pay occasionally, just don't tell my Eldest that I said that, okay?

Earning Cash

Slowly, but surely I am earning the cash for my future drum carder. I'm getting the fine 90/120 one. I can't decide if I'm getting the brush attachment or not. It adds about $50.00 to the total. I might just go get a wall paper brush to use instead. I bet the spouse could come up with a way to attach it for pennies.

I've been selling stuff on Ebay and on Craigslist like crazy. I've almost become obsessed with it. I've caught myself walking around the house looking for more stuff to sell. It's kinda fun.

I've been surprised at what has sold versus what hasn't. The nicer stuff has stayed home and the cheaper stuff has gone. The latest thing to be sold, a small, faded Little Tykes play cube that has been living outside, went today to a lady who owns a Doggy Day Care. Who woulda thought that a doggy daycare would use one of those? Cool thing is, I bought the cube for 2 bucks at a garage sale. I got $30 for it today. Way cool.

If anyone is interested, I'm auctioning off Paula Simmon's book Spinning and Weaving with Wool on ebay.

My Knitting Buddy

Full Moon?

Well, I survived being sick (new meds are working fantastically) and managed not to make a fool out of myself (didn't forget any words) while singing in front of two Sunday church congregations. I didn't see anyone holding their hands over their ears, so it must not have been too bad. :)

The rest of the weekend completely, totally and horrifically sucked though and bled into yesterday. I'm blaming family madness on the full moon. It's the only explanation I've got for batshiat crazy in-law types (my spouse counts as one of those by the way.)

I have been knitting, even though it's been sporadic at best.


The Rogue Pullover is coming along well. I haven't come across any more confusing directions, yeah! I'm working on the armhole shaping, upper back and shoulders at the present. You can see a cross-section progress pic above. I love how the cables turned out on the sides. The ribbing at the bottom will disappear once I've hemmed the final piece.

The Plague

I just can't shake whatever has been plagueing me. I'm sick. Still sick. I finished the prednizone (sp?) and thought I was doing fine and it's hit me like a ton of bricks again. I'm having ear troubles, aches and pains and dizziness and a cold on top. And guess what? I've got a solo to sing in two services this coming Sunday at church. Not good. I'm still waiting on the doc to call me back.

Then on top of that, the spouse and I had a knock down drag out kinda fight, the Youngest has acted up horribly for three days straight and if you give me a minute, I'm sure I can find something that the Eldest has done too. Actually, right now, as I type even, he's aggravating his brother onto ever higher levels of tantrums.

All I want to do is have a drink, eat some chocolate, knit, take a hot bath and go to sleep. Not all necessarily in that order. Except maybe for the alcohol, that stays first. I need a nerve tonic.

Silk!

I almost jinxed myself yesterday. I told you that I was flying along and everything was perfect didn't I? Yep, me and my big mouth.

I got to section four of the pattern and then blew it. There is a lot of confusing wording. She breaks up this part of the pattern into what she calls rounds. Not rows, not exactly repeats. I'm not sure how she justifies the wording. I did a panic call out on Ravelry and then got smart and went to her site. If you have trouble understanding this section of the directions, go to her site and check out the FAQ/Techniques/Tips section. She goes back and explains it much better there. After about half an hour I was flying along again nicely.

This morning though, while both boys were away at school and I had peace and quiet, I got out my spinning again. I've been working on 2 oz. of Tussah Silk that I've been slowly turning into lace-weight singles. I've finished it up and I'm letting it rest on the bobbin for the day. Tomorrow, given a chance, I'll wash and set the twist.

Here's what it looks like now with flash both on and off:




It was supposed to be black, but now, depending on the light, looks sometimes black, sometimes charcoal and sometimes a deep rich purple. I don't care, I think it just looks lovely.

Rogue Hooded Pullover Speed Knitting

I have found the key to speed knitting. It's not only small movements worked at the tips of the needle with proper but loose tensioning.

No, I've discovered that if you add in an over-healthy dose of caffeine combined with Prednizone and a pinch of antibiotics, your speed will increase by at least 50%. I kid you not. I've been flying on the needles even with children interruptions, child chauffering, cooking meals, thinking about cleaning (notice that I didn't say doing), grocery shopping and trying to sell stuff on ebay so I can get my drum carder I've been wanting.

Here's what I've managed to do in two partial days:

I'm working on the Rogue Hooded Pullover. I'm amazed at the cleverness hidden in this pattern. The cables that you see above are at the sides of the sweater. She's hidden the waist shaping in those cables and no one will ever notice.

Once I got past the small learning curve of deciphering her charts, this has been a breeze. The combination of cables and mindless stockinette keeps you from getting bored and also keeps you from getting mired in endless cables like my other cable sweater project.

I've got about half the main sweater (not counting the hood) completed in two days. That's, like, a record for me. I can't wait for all the kids and dad to disappear tonight to go to scouts so that I can work on it some more.

I've got a deadline (self-imposed) for this project. We're going the annual family "pig-pickin'" in SC again this year on Feb. 21st. I want to lose at least three pounds and have this sweater complete by then. Think it can happen? We'll see. I'm optomistic about the sweater, not so much on the poundage, but I'm trying to be hopeful. :)

One quick question for all the cable working gurus out there. I'm having a problem on one side of my cables. See?:


On the left hand side the stitches are gapingly huge and obvious. Any tips on tightening this up and alleviating the problem? All comments welcome!

Beware!

Beware taking a three year old with bad behavior to get professional family portraits done. I'm just sayin'...




Another start-i-tus knitting project coming tomorrow!

Over Ambitiousness

After making the Soon to be Lost toddler mittens, I got all excited about making up another set of mittens. I knew that I wanted them to be fingerless and I wanted them for me. So out came some scrap yarn and needles and I began to play.

I can now with confidence say that I am amazed by the designers out there. Some of them just whip up a pattern and say "ta-da!" Um, I'm not one of them.

I got all over-ambitious. I wanted baby cables and I wanted eyelets and I wanted them to spiral and I wanted it now and for it to be all perfect.

You wouldn't believe how many times I've ripped these things back out. I threw out the spiral idea, but kept the others. The mitts have gone through many shapes and phases. I just haven't been real happy with what I've come up with.

This is the current look, but again, I will probably rip this too since I'm not real thrilled by them. I don't like how the eyelets are sitting right next to the cable. It makes the cables look like I made huge mistakes.




But that's okay. I'm considering this a learning process. I just keep repeating to myself, "baby steps, baby steps". There's not one designer out there that didn't start with baby steps. Unless they're super mega talented prodigies of course. I don't think I can be classified in that category.

So that's what I've been doing. Ripping back everything I've touched in the past couple of days. :sigh:

When and if I ever get these done, I'll write them up and put them up for everyone. But I need to warn you, the finished product may not even resemble the ones before you!

No Sew Dorsal Fin Tutorial - Image heavy

I apologize to those who are looking for knitting or spinning. I'm afraid this post is going to be geared towards costuming. Specifically, making a shark dorsal fin. Obscure huh?

I directed a children's play last night. The kids were fantastic in it. Five of the characters were sharks. We decided to put the kids in gray or blue sweats for the body and add a dorsal fin. One of the kids put teeth and eyes on the hoodie and it was way too cute.

I decided that I would share my method of making a no-sew dorsal fin in case someone else in this wide world needed to make one for a stage play or just for a Halloween costume. So here goes: (click any of the pics for better viewing of the directions)

12 x 18 in. stiff felt

Fold like a book

Staple top of bookKeep it opened





Recycle!

Double this amount


Basically, it's worn like a back pack.

Yes, there are tons of staples. This was done for the stage where the staples could not be seen from the audience, so it didn't need to be clean, just quick and dirty. You may want to do this with hot glue for a cleaner look.

Sorry this is so image heavy, but I hope it helps someone, somewhere!