Cheers!
WIP Wednesday 4
Cheers!
Category: Knitting
Effed Up Baby Surprise Jacket
Update–>Mom and baby are feelin’ fine! My friend delivered her beautiful baby girl this afternoon. Hooray! Now–off to finish the sweater. :-)
On Wednesday last week, I learned that my dear friend would be going into the hospital today to deliver her baby (early) due to some complications. I am worried for her and her baby, but have faith that everything will be all right. She has a wonderful doctor and is in good hands, I’m sure.
In the mean time, what do knitters do when they are worried? They knit. On Friday, I hit the LYS, with the intention of procuring some yarn for one of these. I chose Mission Falls 1824 Wool and brought it home, casting on immediately. I’d had hopes of finishing it up by today, and was ready to knit furiously on it all weekend. The only problem is that I didn’t get the gauge of 7 sts/in that would give me a newborn size. No. And d’ya think I could have been troubled to go down a couple of needle sizes to get the correct gauge according to the pattern? No. I decided to adjust the pattern for my gauge (oh, the hubris!) and attempted to work the pattern with 75% fewer stitches.
I knit and knit and knit, planning the stripes carefully and working the decreases, going back and forth and back and forth late into the night. That was Friday. I woke up Saturday morning and had a good look at my progress. One side was about five stitches shorter than the other. I tried to make it work, counting back and making sure I was decreasing in the right places, but I just couldn’t figure it out. Given my yen to have a baby sweater for my friend by today, I abandoned my attempt at the BSJ in favor of this quick little knit.
And then I ran out of yarn.
No sleeves until I go back to the yarn shop today. *sigh*
Speaking of my trip to the LYS on Friday, I ran into another knit blogger who recognized me from either my blog or ravelry. She introduced herself by the name of her blog (also her Ravelry handle) which is really funny to me. I was so enthused to meet another knit blogger that I thought afterward I might have come off rather too strongly. I guess I was wrong. She describes our meeting and said some really sweet things about me on her blog (hi, Jen!). We hope to get together for some knitting soon. Yay!
WIP Wednesday 2
It’s been a rough few days, spent mainly helping my children recover from the norovirus while I nursed a mild cold. The WsIP I showed you last week lay for the most part completely ignored and I cast on not one, but two new projects.
Sky Arch Socks (yes, these sky arch socks) for I-6, as well as
an alpaca scarf for E2.
Anybody else abandon last week’s WsIP for new ones this week?
Can’t Knit Now…
Even more shocking this weekend than a lack of knitting progress, was a lack of any knitting at all. You see, Saturday, I was busy with this:
Isn’t it sleek and beautiful? I’ve had my old machine since 2000, so this new laptop is an absolute SCREAMER!! I spent the better part of Saturday night and Sunday morning setting it up, but there’s still more to do. It’s amazing how much stuff accumulates on a computer in eight years. Luckily, it’s the kind of stuff that doesn’t take up a lot of 3 dimensional space.
Finally, I took a break from my nifty new laptop and went with Mr. Interrupted and my Totally Awesome Sister over to our local library where Michael Whelan was giving a talk. He has been my favorite SciFi/Fantasy artist for as long as I can remember, so the lecture was a real treat. And the new stuff he has been working on is absolutely amazing. We bought a few of his prints that I can’t wait to have framed and displayed.
What’s that? You don’t believe for a minute that I didn’t knit at all? How well the blog knows me. I did finish the scarf for my TAS while at the WW meeting on Saturday. Here she is modeling it.
Isn’t she haute?
Shocking!
There has been a surprising lack of progress being made on the knitting front (hence all the random posts about things not related to knitting). But people out there have been getting shit done and I have been feeling the pressure of binding off my first project of the new year. That isn’t going to happen, people, partly because I am slightly bored with the projects I’m working on.
Socks for EZ-E. I decided to do an afterthought heel (as discussed recently over at the YH) so right now this project is just knitting, around and around until they are the right length.
A furry scarf to go with the hat I am making for my Totally Awesome Sister. It’s plain garter stitch, back and forth back and forth, until I run out of yarn.
Lastly, a sweater for I-6. I’ve finished the shaping and am now just going around and around in stockinette stitch until it’s long enough. Also I really don’t like this yarn.
Anyone sensing a trend here?
On the upside, I found these at a new-to-the-area supermarket the other day.
I can’t tell you how tickled I was. Would you like a Jelly Baby? Hah!
A Year of Knitting
Insert Pithy Blog Post Title Here
It’s Caturday and rainy here–a perfect day for knitting. I will probably work on
a furry scarf to go with
a furry hat (it’s done, but needs elastic or something)
E’s socks in the Killer Bees colorway from the Yarn Pirate
and maybe even the first learning sock from Cat Bordhi’s new book (now that I’ve got a proper set of stitch markers for it)!
Coming Out of Retirement
Last night, I finished the Kitty Pi,
and then spent several hours playing around with my stash, trying to decide what to cast on next.
This is never an easy process for me. There’s just so much to chose from! I have an okay-sized stash with some yarn purchased for specific projects and a lot of other random yarn from projects I was going to do, but have since changed my mind about. Take, for example, the 5 skeins of Red Heart Super Saver that I picked up to knit into a bat costume for Isaac. Luckily, he changed his mind and decided instead to wear the awesome Jaguar costume I got for him at the second-hand store. But now I have a huge amount of yarn taking up an inordinate amount of space in my stash, yarn that I’m not all that excited about. I had considered giving it away, until I saw this on Ravelry. I’ll admit, I used to crochet a lot, but abandoned it entirely to make room for knitting. I really liked this project, however, and thought it would be nice to have a big warm afghan to keep in our living room. So, I decided to come out of crochet retirement and I hooked it on late last night.
Although, I wonder how much I will like this project when it turns into a gigantic plain black star, hah!
Also, I had this pair of toe-up Jaywalkers hibernating in my sock yarn stash. I decided to wake them up, in support of my friend Dawn who is wrestling with her own pair of Jaywalkers (knit in the traditional manner).
I figure these projects with keep me busy, at least through Christmas anyway, when Santa brings me a set of Knit Picks Options. Then I can cast on this and this and this. Yay! (Oh, and let’s not forget this.)
What is the process you use to decide what project to knit (or crochet) next? Do you struggle with it as much as I do?
More FOs
So, after my last post, I cast on this:
A Santa Hat. I’ve had the yarn for this in my stash since the year I started knitting, so about 4 years now. I never cast it on because by the time I was in the mood to knit Santa Hats, I never thought I could finish in time for Christmas. My knitting skills must be coming along because I cast on Saturday afternoon and finished Sunday afternoon. Hooray for learning!
Anyway, when that was finished, I cast on this:
A Kitty Pi for Doozer. And, it’s a good thing, too, because last night the kids trashed the cheep-o cat condo we got at Target a couple of months ago. They must’ve caught a little cabin fever because hoo-boy was it crazy in here. Speaking of crazy, it’s starting to escalate again.
Ta!
Two Hats
I actually got some knitting done this week. Check out my Calorimetry:
I actually had a hard time with this because I didn’t realize at first that in order to get gauge with it, you have to stretch your swatch as far as you would like it to stretch on your head before you measure it. My first attempt measured nearly 32″ long, unstretched. The pattern states it should be 24″ long, stretched. Needless to say, I had to do some math and fiddle with the pattern a little. My Calorimetry is worked on 78 sts with a gauge of 3.25 sts/inch. I think it’s adorable.
Also, the other night, I finished a Who Hat for Mr. Interrupted:
It didn’t come out as DoctorWhoScarf-ery as I had envisioned, but I’m still happy with it.
I now, officially, have nothing on my needles (no projects AT ALL, how is that even possible?) and am going to spend the rest of this evening rooting through my stash and scouring the Ravelry pattern pages to figure out what I’m going to knit next.
Knitting Interrupted 
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