One Crazy Fiber Lady

Geez, this winter is never going to end.  The 70F temperatures earlier this week were nothing but a tease!  I must have gotten a foot of snow/ice in the last 24 hours.   I had the kids out this morning for some fun in the snow, but boy am I glad that they wanted to come in.  They are currently vegging out on the couch watching some TV giving me a primo opportunity to catch up.

Here’s how I’ve been spending my commute time during the last week:

The current socks, as Christine correctly guessed, are from STR in the Lucy colorway.  It is a slightly thicker yarn than I normally.  I "swatched" with the normal US0′s but wasn’t happy with the feel of the fabric so I went up to the US1.  As a result, these socks are only 52 stitches!  Combine that with a short foot and these babies basically knit themselves.  Which is a good thing when you see that sexy toy holding my needles for me   That’s the sweet PSP.  I played Me & My Katamari until my fingers cramped.  Oy.  I’ve since taken a break and played Lumines (Tetris on steroids!) and even put a couple of movies on the 4 gig memory stick I bought for it. 

I’ve done a bit of work on Icarus, but don’t have any progress shots as of last.  I finished the 5th repeat of chart one and am in the prep for chart 2.   In other lace update, my Sea Silk Swallowtail has come out of timeout and I’m ready to start the final chart today.

Yesterday Kat awoke with a fever, I had a headache and combine both with the snow, I took the day off.  I was very productive though.  Beyond getting through the Lily of the Valley chart on Swallowtail and well into the partial repeat of Chart 1 for Icarus, I started a project…  I don’t think my baby sister reads the blog regularly and if she does, MOVE ALONG NOW RIKKI!….

She’s due with her first baby, July 2nd.  The baby shower is April 21st so I need to get knitting.  While I did pick yarn and a pattern at the MY SnB on thursday, somehow the pattern didn’t make it into my bag.  I’ll have to pop down there tomorrow to pick it up as I won’t be able to make the SnB this week (folks are teaching a final class on charting/plotting to a bunch of local police turned activated Navy Reservists who are off to Iraq shortily).  While the u/s pretty much indicates that I’ll get getting my first niece, mom thought it best not to rely on that quite yet.  We’ve had a few u/s indicated nieces turn out to be boys at birth   U/S technology is far better these days, but better yet save the pink yarn for a couple of months.  So I went spelunking in stash and hot off the heals of my success sewing together the Dale sweater for Alex, I remembered the Baby Ul marinating that I bought to make a baby sized one.  I got to work and by the end of yesterday finished this:

I’m pretty sure the pattern is Sedestal (its way upstairs and I’m too lazy to go get it).  I "swatched" by starting the sleeve, getting spot on gauge.  Nice.  Its a cute little knit.  Now to maintain focus long enough to finish it   Knit on US0 and 2′s, I’m seriously glad it is a baby sweater.  I’m making the 6/9 month size so it should be perfectly sized to get my niece through the fall and winter.  I hope her mama likes it.  I hope to have it finished for the shower.  I might try for one of these sweaters too if I can find the right yarn for it or maybe upsize it for one of the monkeys.  (Thanks go to Dorre for the link!)

Time to go relax..

Craft on!

First I hope that everyone had a happy and healthy Christmas.  I was a busy little knitter whilst trying to avoid the last minute crush at the mall and finding something to do while the whole area shut down

Thursday night was the Knit n Nog at Modern Yarn.  What a serious blast that was!  The place was packed with all the regulars PLUS I finally got to meet Deborah in person!  I did the finish work on Ariann but left the buttons for Friday night and moved onto STS edging for the remainder of the evening.  Wasn’t much that got done thanks to the NOG and  shopping as I finally made use of my 25% discount and picked up enough Cascade 220 to knit two sweaters, including a second Ariann.

After getting home, I had to quickly wrap up the teacher gifts as they needed to go to school the next day.  Ain’t nothing like leaving it to the last minute, huh?  Here they are all lined up with the supervisor looking on.

Friday night was devoted to finishing off Ariann, which got blocked on Saturday.  I need to do a little touchup work on the buttonholes.  Either the buttons are too small, or the holes are too big, whatever it is, the darn things don’t stay closed.  As I love the buttons with the yarn, I’m going to sew the hole a tad smaller.  Right now though, I’ve taken to wearing it open!

Sorry.  None of the head shots are even remotely presentable so you’ll have to live with the Ichibod Crane versions.

After blocking out Ariann, I went back to work on the Shetland Tea Shawl.  I finally finished the bugger around lunch time on Sunday.  Dad had taken the shorties out for hotdogs and a trip to the park.  That allowed me to finish it off and get it blocked out.  Whew.  Glad this anniversary shawl didn’t hit the anniversary mark!  I fell about a month short of that date.  Lovely shawl and I’m so glad it is finally done.

Here she is hanging on the door to my desk armoire.

As an aside, the color in the second picture is true (at least on my monitor).  That picture is also courtesy of the Rebel.  Man that camera takes some lovely pictures. 

Now that I’ve finished off a couple of projects, that meant I could start something new!   As STS was drying, I had pulled out the yarn for the next one.  This time it is the Forest Canopy Shawl in Claudia’s Handpaint, Plumicious colorway.  What a great project this one is.  I think it would be fabulous for a newbie lace knitter.  It isn’t terribly difficult and very easy to memorize.  Par for the course though, it is terrible to photograph under way!

I found a sunny spot in the house this afternoon!  My new bedroom to be has a west facing window and this sun patch was on the folks’ bed.  I quickly took advantage of it as my current room only has north facing windows.  The Rebel ate this one up!

Having spent a day playing with the new shawl, I started a new sweater yesterday.  I joined Julia in an informal KAL of Celtic Dreams.  I’ve been intrigued by this sweater forever.  So when she mentioned it as a possibility, I joined up, ordering Blackwater Abbey Yarn in Bracken, as well as, the pattern.  I’m pretty sure I mentioned this before.  Well before the others go too terribly ahead of me, and since I had promised to join as soon as Ariann was done, there was no time like the present.  I cast on yesterday!

It took me a little longer than I expected to get really underway.  Deb, you’ll be amused to know that I had gauge issues with the shoulder saddles too.  The suggested needles are a US7/4.5mm.  Using that needle, my saddle was a 3" wide rather than the 2.5" the pattern indicated.  Ugh.  I dropped down in size and finally wound up with a 3mm Addi Natura.  Aran weight yarn on essentially a US2?  Oy.  I’m surprisingly far into it now.  Even further than this picture indicates.  I’m two rows from putting the back on hold and starting the front and have finished the second of the 24 row pattern repeats.

I’m off this week entertaining the monkeys during their school holiday so I’m hoping to get some bonus knitting time.  Tomorrow we’re heading down to visit my sister and her boys.  Thursday we’re hoping to get together with Lisa and her daughter for some ceramic painting and lunch. 

Today Mom and I keep them busy with a trip to Montclair looking for 32" wood circs in a 3mm.  Modern Yarn was closed, but I did get Naturas at Stix-n-Stitches.   I’m also incapable of leaving a yarn store with just needles.  I had to get the methadone of knitters:  sock yarn.  This time a skein of Austermann Step in Color 8.  I’m intrigued by that whole Aloe Vera/Jojoba Oil in the yarn.  It was one of those great mail days as well!  My Frangipani arrived today, as well as the next in the Sundara Petals collection (which puts me 3 behind now   Also sitting in the mailbox was the skein of SeaSilk in Pumpkin that I bought from Knit-Purl last week earmarked to be Eunny’s Print of the Wave scarf.

I’m pretty well set for stash knitting

Craft on!

This week is a much shortened work week for me.  Today is the last workday as the office is closed for the remainder of the week.  As a result, a goodly number of people took advantage of being able to get a whole week off by using only two days, leaving the office a bit of a ghost town.  I don’t have much to do as my big projects were completed last week.  Makes for a nice quiet time before a long holiday weekend for sure. 

As a bit of an experiment, I modified my commute again this morning.  I’ve gone back to switching trains in Secaucus to end at Penn Station NY rather than Hoboken.  Timewise, the two options are about the same.  The difference, even with having an extra train, is a shorter walk once in Manhattan.  The Hoboken + PATH leaves me at Sixth Avenue and 9th Street with a need to wander over to Broadway and 9th.  That’s three long avenues for those who aren’t familiar with the city.  (The distance between avenues is far greater than between streets.)  Penn Station + Subway involves a one avenue walk between Penn and Herald Square with a subway exit at 8th and Broadway.  Not sure about your math, but three trains makes for shorter walking, especially in the cold wind tunnels that is NY in the winter. 

The downside is potentially reduced knitting time.  I couldn’t get a seat on the Secaucus to NY train and had to stand in the aisle  (leaning against a bulkhead I could knit, but not standing) so I turned to the ebook on my Treo. 

We’ll see how the return commute works tonight before I decide whether I buy the NYPenn monthly for December.

I spent most of yesterday’s knitting time working on that sleeve for Ariann.  I’m one increase short the end goal on the first one and I don’t think it is a stretch of my knitting speed to predict it shall be finished today.  No pictures of it as it looks like the one yesterday, just longer.  I have, however, been able to work the increases into the eyelet pattern and am pleased with how it is coming out. 

I did put a little time last night into the Moderne Baby Blanket, though have not completed the third block.  I was itching to get Ariann’s sleeve done before the urge to start a new sweater overtook my ability to finish it.  Anyway, I do appreciate the suggestions in the comments yesterday regarding ack-rylic for baby knitting.  It really isn’t as bad as the ack-rylic I remember from my early knitting days, the yarn that squeaked.  Eeew.  This is the Bernat Softee Baby that is actually quite soft and is pleasant to knit with.  It ain’t wool, but then again, it ain’t cotton (blech).  The skein in the picture is the fourth color I’ll be using for this blanket.

Should I admit to the spreadsheet I created to calculate percentage completion on this blanket?  Nah

Here’s the final teacher scarf.  This was done in a Farrow Rib on US8 needles.  The yarn is Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Worsted in Old Rose.  I really liked the yarn and it held up well to the insane number of start/stops that this scarf had.  Offhand, I know I tried at least 5 different stitch patterns before hitting on the Farrow Rib, which was perfect commuting knitting!  I actually could walk to the PATH station while knitting the thing. I started it Thursday at lunch and finished it Friday night. I’m pleased with the results.  Next step is to block them all and get the kids to pick which scarf is for which teacher.  I’m terribly relieved to get the gifts out of the way but very glad that I did, in the end, opt to knit them something.

Sara found herself someplace far more comfy than my night table to sleep last evening.  Right before bed, I found her ensconced on the living room sofa.  Earl usually sleeps at the other end of the couch.  Right now, they have no view out the window as the builders put sheets of plywood up to protect the windows from accidental breakage.  The window will be replaced sometime during this project, but surely not now.  Memory is a little fuzzy, but if I recall correctly, mom needlepointed that pillow that Sara is leaning against.

And now for the daily house picture.  This was taken as I left for the train(s) this morning.  You can see they are now incorporating the new addition into the existing roof.  A not totally unexpected condition was discovered this morning as the sheathing under the roofing tile on the old part of the house was found to be in rather poor condition.  As a result the whole thing needs to be stripped off and re-sheathed before the new roof installed.  You can see that the pile of wood is greatly diminished. Mom has gotten her side of the driveway back and we no longer have to stack our cars up each night.

In case anyone has stuck around, I do have a question as to how you figure which size sweater to make.  I’m a 36" at the widest point, but just barely, more like 35".  One of the possible next projects is Celtic Dreams, with the Blackwater Abbey in Bracken purchased, delivered and starting to mellow in stash.  The sweater sizes are 36" and the next up would be 40".  I’d think that the 40" would give far too much ease and make for a big baggy sweater that I wouldn’t wear very much, but that the 36" would be too tight.  Which would you make?  Can I just block the 36" a little bigger?  Do I fudge the pattern to make a 38" somehow?

Craft on!

As I hoped earlier today, here’s a more comprehensive post.  Sorry had to pause to yell at a preschooler who doesn’t exactly want to go to sleep. 

There’s been a lot going on around these here parts.  Like others have noted, this past weekend, especially Saturday, was downright glorious in this area.  My dad and I took advantage of the almost 70F November day and took the monkeys to Van Saun Park.  We went for a ride on the park railroad.

After the train ride, we went into the zoo.  A pretty well stocked zoo whose admission was free for the day.  Can’t beat that.  While in the zoo, I spotted this picturesque spot where fall’s splendour is in full display.

As I mentioned in my brief post earlier, construction is due to start here this week.  If it weren’t for the deluge promised for tomorrow, it would have already.  Monday, a large pile of wood was delivered and stacked over half the driveway.  Interesting logistics now as mom’s Envoy and my Sienna need to get parked in the driveway with dad’s cute little PT Cruiser living in the garage.  In order for him to get out, we need to move the rest of the cars.  Sigh.  We took some before shots of the house:

This is the front (and you can just see some wood in the corner of the picture.

And from a different angle (and pre-wood delivery)..

And the back..

What are we doing you might be asking?  Well we’re adding a whole floor over the shorter half (one story) of the house.  This will contain a new master bedroom suite for my folks, an office for us grups to share and a sitting room/den.  This leaves the existing 3 bedrooms for the monkeys and me.  I’ll take the old master bedroom (kind of cool yet creepy in a way) and when it comes time to split up the monkeys, there will be room.  For a while yet, they’ll continue to share the larger of the remaining rooms with the smaller becoming a playroom for them.  I get to take the current den as a fiber/hobby room to share with mom.  SuiteSweet.  There will also be a porch running the length of the addition along the front of the house, replacing the current brick front steps with a slight wrap around the side.  They are predicting ripping off the roof on Friday.  The builder is promising to have the addition framed in with the new roof in place within 10 days.  Yeah.  I’ll try not to turn this into a construction progress blog, but no promises

Finally there has been knitting.  Pretty single minded knitting for me too!  I’ve been working on the teacher gifts… and joined the KAL that Nancy created.  Here’s my progress so far:

From back to front:

*Irish Hiking Scarf in the hand spun Cormo/Angora that I started 11/6 and finished at the SnB on Thursday.

*One Row Handspun Scarf in Malabrigo started Thursday at the SnB and finished Friday night while watching Battlestar Galactica.  Dude, that is probably the best show on tv, but I digress.

*Skinny Clapotis in Noro Silk Garden started on Saturday (after ripping several other patterns including a Multidirectional Scarf and some entrelac thing I found on the net) and finished Sunday.

By finished, I mean that the knitting is finished.  They all still need to be washed and blocked while all but the ORHS needs to have its ends worked in. 

This leaves one more stinkin’ scarf to do.  And yes, I haven’t finished it.  Actually I really haven’t gotten past the start point on it.  Kat was sick Sunday night through yesterday and work commitments kept me busy so that I haven’t had much time to knit.  I did break out the ballwinder for a skein of Lorna’s Laces in the worsted for this final scarf.  I started a couple of patterns, even got through 5 repeats of the IHS with it before I pulled out the needles.  I didn’t want to repeat any.

I sat with the Barbara Walker books and found a stitch pattern that might work, also named right too.  In the second volume, I found the Twin Rib.  What better pattern to knit a scarf for a teacher who cares for my twins?!  Seems like that serendipity to me.

Oh and this is for Deb, sneaking it in under the wire, here’s my calendar.  It is a mimeo sheet that I get each month from the kids’ teacher as to what they will be doing that month.  It does serve as my wall calendar while the Treo maintains everything else, especially with its on air connection to my Outlook calendar at the office!

Craft on!

Worry no more about the whole teacher gift knitting quandry.  I’m proclaiming this year the year of the scarf.  I think I had made that decision quite a while ago, January more likely, when I made this.  I can’t find evidence of it, but I vaguely recall proclaiming the scarf the teacher gift for 2006. 

Now if I could just find where I put this scarf, I would be able to cross one of the four off the list.

Worst case scenario?  I buy two skeins of Noro and make a new one.  Aww that would be a tough one, wouldn’t it.  I could make that sacrifice for these teachers. 

In the meantime, I could resist the call of the Irish Hiking Scarf last night.  I started it after dinner while watching some Big Comfy Couch with the twins.  I cast on using some Cascade 220 Superwash in a purple that was aging in stash.  After doing 5 or 6 repeats on a US7 needle, I found the scarf just didn’t have the squoosh factor that I was looking for. 

After the twins went to bed, I went stash diving to see what would squoosh and yet wouldn’t be itchy.  I couldn’t find anything in the store bought yarn and then hit the chest of drawers with the hand spun.  I found what would be the perfect yarn.  Back in 2003, Chris picked me up some lovely cormo/angora roving from Alice Fields at one of the New England festivals.  I had planned on going myself, but I was 4 months pregnant and feeling a little off.  We all decided that it was best for me to sit this one out.  Anyway, Chris picked it up for me.  It was definitely a very yummy roving and I quickly spun it up.  The resulting yarn went into stash though a small amount was made into an infant sweater that I knit while lying on my butt in the hospital.  Sadly, I don’t think it ever went on one of the twins. 

This yarn has serious squoosh.  And the IHS is progressing very nicely.  I can do roughly one repeat in about 10 minutes.  I cast on this scarf last night at 10:30 and did the bulk of this thing today during the normal knitting times (train/lunch).  I did take it in with me to the polling place but there was no line at 6pm and I didn’t need it.  Figures.  Bet if I had left my knitting in the car, the line would have been an hour long!  Anyway…

I think I’m going to forgo the math figuring of how many repeats I need to do at how many repeats per hour to figure out how many remaining hours of knitting I have.  As commenter extraordinaire Rachel H. put it:

Rule number one: Do Not count the remaining stitches. It sucks the life
right out of you.

Thank you for that reminder, Rachel.

Today was one of those excellent mail days.  First up was a pair of shoes that I’ve been eyeing forever at work.  They had been on the 60% off employee discount list forever, but there was a little requirement that they be purchased in the retail stores and not online.  Finding a store isn’t a problem.  There are 4 that I can get to easily, 2 near the office and 2 at home.  The problem is that they start at size 6 in the stores and I have a size 5 foot.  Sigh.  The 5′s are online but no discount online.  I was patient and it finally paid off.  The shoes went on sale and I jumped.  Got em even cheaper than if I could take advantage of the 60 off list as I get 50% off the sale price!  Good things do come to those who wait.

Brooke will probably be amused by this next bit.  One of our stops during the wandering around the fairgrounds at the festival was the fleece sale.  I was taken by a gorgeous corriedale fleece that was just sooooooo clean and well, perfect.  Except it was 8.9 pounds and really, I’m at SABLE, I just don’t need that much raw wool.  So, while I lusted after the thing, I walked away from it, reluctantly.  It did come up again in conversation though, and I had been tempted to go back, but it and then drop it off at one of the processors.  But then there was that whole not needing all that much wool still hanging around.  I remember clearly telling Brooke that we’d not go back and that surely someone else had bought the thing.  I do have to admit that as my group was forming for the long car ride home, and the sale was right there, I did check.  If it had been there, I would have bought it.  Sadly, it wasn’t there.

I found out though that it hadn’t been bought, just picked up by its shepherd.  How did I know this?  Marcia had been oogling the same fleece over the course of the weekend!  She did me one better though and got the contact info for the shepherd.  Long story short, we split the thing!  My half arrived from Marcia today.  This thing is as gorgeous as I remember it.  Though it isn’t as tippy as this photograph is showing.  Not sure what is up with that. 

And a closeup of the yummy goodness:

Each lock is just perfect.  Look at that crimp!  I ain’t sending this out for processing.  I’m going to give it some tender loving care at home.

Well time to watch House and then to bed.  I have an early deployment (6AM) of a project that I’ve been working on for the last couple of months.  Fortunately, unlike the previous and obnoxious employer, I had to be onsite.  The current employer recognizes that I can copy files using a computer from anywhere.  Which blessedly includes my laptop whilst lying on my bed, which is btw, where I am no whilst writing this!

Craft on my lovelies.

I’ve hit one of those funk periods with the various knitting projects.  Digging through the wonderland of memory that is this blog, I found that I had a similar funk last year at this time.  I’ve been whittling down the WIPs but have now hit a stage where none of them are close.  Surprisingly, there are no socks on the needles right now either.  Still.

I did spend some time this weekend with Ivy.  I do love the finished look of the sweater and the Lavold Silky Wool is just a lovely yarn, I’m still on the back.  Knittng acres of stockinette in a fine gauge.  I managed to get past the armhole shaping last night, but still have some 6 inches at 8 rows to the inch and 94 stitches to the row to get through.  That’s 4,512 stitches left for the back before the shoulder shaping.  And that’s just the back.  Let’s not forget the fronts and the sleeves.  Sigh.  I’m just not feeling the love there.

Ariann at least is a larger gauge and knit in one piece, is getting close to the armhole section.  I really should have picked that to work on instead of Ivy.  Not sure why I didn’t, maybe it was that it isn’t quite the mindless knitting that acres of stockinette proves to be.  I do have to pay attention to Ariann.

We won’t even talk about the lace.  I have some 100 more edging points to do on STS.  It is hard to believe sometimes that I still have 25% of this damn shawl to knit.  Amazing how those little stitches add up. 

So should it be any surprise that I’m itching for a quick project?  Something more than a hat or gloves (which I do need to be doing before it gets really cold).   I’m itching for the speedy joy that is Banff.  I’ve already done this sweater and there are so many others in the queue.  But, it is a great little knit and I’ve wanted to do it in a softer yarn.  I just placed an order with Webs for the Lavold Chunky AL to fulfill this quickie need.  I just hope that Webs ships this out to me ASAP.  They’re usually pretty good about that and I should have it within a few days.  Good.  I’ll try and stave off the need to cast on willy-nilly until it arrives.

In the meantime, I also need to seriously think about the whole teacher gift thing again.  Each year I struggle over this.   Do I buy something?  Do I knit something?  If I knit, what do I knit them?  I have almost a whole new crop of teachers with only one repeater from last year (who also was with them the year before). The first year was booga bags. Last year was a mix of items to the various teacher ( and I just remembered what the fourth one got, a booga bag ).  I always get grief from my dad that a cash gift to these ladies is better than "just a knitted item" but a number of my knitting buddies are teachers and they say a knitted item is a great gift.  Whatever it is, it has to be a fast project now as we’re getting into crunch time now.  Suggestions are definitely welcome.

Craft on!

Edited to add:  Am I nuts to be seriously considering the Irish Hiking Scarf for a teacher gift?  I could technically knit that one out of stash easily, but then again there is that whole proximity to yarn stores and need to maintain stashus quo.  Purl is close with the Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Worsted.  Or School Products and their cashmere worsted. It shouldn’t take too terribly long to complete.  Or there is also the No No Kitty Ribbed Hat and Scarf pattern in a bulky yarn.  While temptingly quick to knit there is this hate/hate thing I have with bulky (3st/in) yarn and 10.5 needles.

Well the kids are up and i’m supervising their sandbox activity. Seemed like a good time to try the outdoor shot on the Treo and show my progress on Fana’s body. I have finished pattern I and am now into the second stripe on pattern II.

I read ahead in the pattern and much to my dismay, I will need to knit back and forth in two colors to do the neck area. Blech. There’s got to be a way to do it in the round.
I am also not thrilled with how the buttonband placket is knitted and then sewn (?!) to the front edges. Yeah not my favorite. I’ll probably ignore those directions and knit it on instead. No need to be a slave to a pattern, right? Especially when I have committed myself to make a second one of these!

Next to figure out what to make for dinner and if the grandfolks are coming home from the boat early enough to join us.
Craft on!

Edited to remove photo to see if posting will actually submit now. It has been generating errors now for over 12 hours. The gloss is coming off typepad mobile if you ask me.  PS the it worked without the picture.  I’ll have to experiment more.  In the meantime, I need to get the picture off the Treo and onto my desktop.  Oy.  I’ll edit this post when I get it.

I didn’t get much knitting done last night my new Ott light was waiting for me by the door.  Hopefully my pictures will be much better for you all now.  After putting the thing together and getting it situated, I was able to sit down and do some training knitting.  I finally got to the fair isle portion of this glove.  You can see that one row with the slate blue peeking out at you from all that black.  I have to say, I’m glad I’m working this training piece as the yarn in the off hand is frustrating the crud out of me.  I’m a continental knitter and I wrap the yarn around my wrist and then my index finger.  Works nicely, been doing that for 30 years now.  Now this whole English method is worlds different and I just can’t hold the yarn.  It feels wrong.  I can’t maintain any kind of workable tension and the yarn is going every which way but loose, getting hooked around the needle at the wrong spot, etc.  Oy.  Frustrating!  Needless to say, I haven’t progressed very far or very fast on this during my morning commute.  I did manage to get 4 more rounds done during my 30 minutes on the train.  That’s nowhere near my normal speed!  I need some serious training.

Oh and there’s another problem with this whole project.  At best, if I ever get to the second one, they’d be fraternal twins.  I only have one skein of the black and off-white 4ply, nicely documented here.  You think I could have looked at the picture more closely, or dug through the bag some more before selecting the colors I did for this. Noooooo.   I wonder what the odds are of getting one more skein of Rowan Yorkshire Tweed 4ply, color 281 (Knight) in lot 6C3 are?  Oy.

I’ve made it a tad further on mom’s belated socks and got Sara to spokesmodel them beneath the new Ott light.  Your moment of kitten zen. I’ve finished the second heel and am into the foot.  You see correctly, I continue to embrace the whole Magic Loop thing.  Same goes for the nasty FI gloves above.  That is a US0 40" addi turbo.  If I weren’t so scattered knitting hither and thither, I’d say these would be done in no time.  Realistically, I want to have them done for her birthday on 2/12.  Best get them done before the Olympics start.

I’ve now turned down a second knitting for hire job in less than a week.  Does anyone else do this?  As I knit every day during lunch, I’ve drawn a bit of attention.  One fellow announced that he’d like me to knit him a pair of cashmere socks.  I politely declined, and continued to decline as he pushed more.  I then pointed him at a website I knew that sold decently priced cashmere socks.  Another coworker, after verifying that I am indeed a knitter, asked if I knit for hire.  She’d seen something she liked in a store, but since it wasn’t wool wouldn’t buy it.  Could I knit it for her.  Uh no.  Could I make me some money doing that?  I don’t doubt it.  But I don’t think I would enjoy it.  I don’t like the pressure of knitting for others.  I’ve also jealously guarded this most treasured of hobbies.  Computers used to be a very entertaining hobby that I now make money at and has lost hobby status.  I no longer enjoying futzing with the computer and haven’t since I gone pro-geek.  I don’t want to go pro-knitting and lose that enjoyment.  Does that make sense?  Am I just being silly?  Should I go chase this lady down and ask really what she wanted and just knit it for her?  How the heck do you price for the service?  Time + materials is the minimum, but what rate for the time?  I would highly doubt I could get away charging what I make on an hourly basis for the pro-geek gig.  That would make for a VERY expensive headband indeed.  On the other hand, my few hours of craft time each week are worth more than a mere pittance.   But… knitting for hire would go a way to supporting my serious yarn habit.  You’d be proud of me, I just abandoned a cart with cheap Noro Silk Garden in it.  As Nancy noted, I’ve developed a bit of a Noro habit. I’m torn between going back to coworker and this time really talking to her to see what she wanted and give it a serious consideration.

Craft on.

All quiet on the eastern front.  Still no fallout from telling the twins.  Whew.  I was truly sweating that, but I do think that Cate was right in her comment, they fed off my reaction and since I was sad, they were sad.  I had gotten past the point where I couldn’t think about Baron, let alone talk about him, without falling to pieces.  Things get a bit better each day.

There has been knitting going on around here.  Sort of.  First, I did sneak in one more item in 2005. The Boogie Hat that I knit him turned out to be too short.  I needed to add some length to it.  I figured I could just pick up some stitches along the cast on edge and add a few inches of ribbing.  It looked silly.  Then I figured, I could rip back the top and add a few pattern repeats for a taller hat.  Ugh.  I must have been using different needles, but I had all sorts of problems with the yarn splitting, blah blah blah.  I got pissed off at it and wound up flinging the works across the living room. Yeah, grown up.  Fortunately the monkeys were napping and didn’t see my tantrum.  At least they come by it naturally   Anyway, still pissed, I pulled out the ballwinder and did a bit of surfing for a good, quick, basic pattern.  Found one quickly and got down to serious knitting.  This one fits.  Heck it fits everyone, Alexander included!  Project details are over here.

This is the Diamond Fantasy Shawl that I started back on 12/23.  I worked like gangbusters on it for a while, until I started feeling guilty about the hat and the belated socks for mom.   I’m using Fleece Artist Merino in the Ruby Red.  I love the yarn and the pattern.  I wrote out each row of the chart on an index card and keep the pile in a clear index card container that I picked up a while ago.  Perfect solution as I was having, um, concentration issues with the charted pattern while the short people were out and about.  The worst I have to do now is beat up on a toddler who makes off with the card box periodically.

Finally in the new works in progress category are the socks for mom.  I wrapped a skein of yarn, Happy Trails in Blueberry, and gave her that for the holidays, along with the gauntlets.  I can’t exactly remember when I cast on for the socks during vacation.  All the days blur into each other.  I fudged the date in the WIP list just to put something there.  It could have been before, or after, I can’t be sure at the moment.  I really didn’t get working on them until Tuesday when I went back to commuting!  I finished the short row heel during lunch.  If I hadn’t gotten sucked into the Sudoku puzzle in today’s paper, I would have gotten further during my commute home.

Some kid cuteness is probably called for at this point.  I can FINALLY put Kat’s hair in ponytails.  Well sometimes anyway.  She’d rather be scraggly most of the day.  Well she decided she wanted two ponytails this evening before dinner.  Naturally I obliged this wish as she just looks adorable with them.  Not surprisingly, her brother wanted ponytails too.
Doesn’t my dad just look so thrilled???  Boy kept them in until I took them out as I changed him for bed.  He wasn’t happy about that either.  Toddlers are just weird. 

I’ve been posting at night this week as I’m working on a pretty big project coding a new component at work with a deadline of tomorrow.  I finished the bulk of the work this evening and have a few finishing touches to do tomorrow.  I’ll make deadline and still be able to get out a smidge early to pick the kids up at daycare (folks are going out and won’t be able to).  In the interim though, I haven’t been able to spare the time to do the blog thing (or the email thing, or even read other blogs) during the day.  I am so hoping to catch up with all my bloglines this weekend as I’m still behind from vacation, let alone new posts this week.  I sadly might have to just start fresh as it is a bit daunting at the moment.  Okay, I’m off to answer another batch of emails, clean the kitchen and maybe sneak in some knitting before bed.

Craft on!

While I don’t celebrate this holiday myself, I do want to wish all those that do a very Merry Christmas.  I hope you’ve been surrounded by all those important to you.  Yes, Hannukah officially starts tonight, but my family exchanged our gifts on the 18th (not fair speeding up the knitting end deadline either!).  The twins and I are sharing a quiet {snicker} day together at home and I thought I’d take a moment to post a long overdue update.

Since I posted last, I went to my office holiday party (12/16), had a wonderful playdate with Deb, celebrated the season with the family, started a 2 week vacation, and knitted my darn fingers off.  I detailed it all in my completed album so I won’t put too much here.  Most was finished at the last much to my cramped fingers dismay.  I took almost a two day rest and returned with the Diamond Fantasy Shawl using the Fleece Artist Merino that I don’t think I ever blogged but do remember getting it after Stephanie knitted hers.  I don’t have pictures of that yet, but will save that for another day.  I’ve finished three of the six repeats.  Anyway here’s pictures of the finished gifts:

(Photos link to album page with project info.)  The natives are getting a little restless and I need to speed this up and well, sorry, links are just time consuming, even if they are pointing to your own site.  We have here the Thuja socks, a Kerchief Scarf, Shetland Lace scarf and Handwarmers.  The socks, with their huge feet parts fit my father perfectly!  The other three were gifts for the kids’ teachers.  Nope, the Rowan Biggy Print didn’t end up as gifts for them.  Actually the Biggy Print will end up in the "Looking for a home" album shortly.  I do need to do a little cleaning this week of vacation now that all the gift knitting distraction is over.

Besides the gift knitting, I also finished up some knitting for the little people:

Again, these link to the project pages in my album.  Sadly the mittens are a tad overfelted and a bit stiff for the little monkey hands.  I bought them some new ones at the mall on Friday.  The socks?  Yup, finally finished those bad boys.  Serious case of SSS for them.  Can’t believe how long it took to finish these very small little socks.

I received some very nice gifts as well.  The first was on Saturday during the playdate with Deb.  Her description of it is fabulous and I just point you there   She gave me a wonderful holiday gift!

That is THREE skeins of Zephyr in my absolutely favorite  color, along with hand made beaded stitch markers.  LOVE IT!  I’ve always wanted to try the Zephyr.  Thank you Deb!  Thank you!   I think I’ll be using this yarn for the Anniversary Pi Shawl come January 21 (official cast on date is the 22nd) when Deb and I get together for an outing to Majestic Yarns followed by Starbucks.  I think I’ll be working on the Shetland Tea Shawl from Gathering of Lace.

At risk of blowing away my crazy fiber reputation, my favorite gifts are these.  Imagine my surprise when my mother had Alex and Kat each hand me a wrapped present.  Inside were these hand/foot prints that my parents had put together.  Story has it that Kat didn’t dig putting her hands into it and they had to wrestle her to get this done.  Like the Grinch, my heart grew several sizes larger as I looked at these.  I’m trying to find the perfect place to hang them.  I now also have a guide for making further mittens… which I might do with some thinner weight yarn and not go for the felting thing.  We’ll see. 

I think I’ll leave this here.  The natives need lunch and well, I need some knitting.  Hopefully the next post will be sooner, but I’m still on vacation and will be until January.  We all know how spotty I am about posting from home.  I also have a load of email to reply to and blogs to catch up on.  Again, a very happy holiday to you.

Craft on.