Still here, still knitting

Amy pointed out, quite correctly, "You haven't blogged much lately." True enough. The weekend after we painted, the Knitwits ran away for a quick yarn crawl. I got some yarn. I haven't taken pictures. I also got some snappy new shoes, perfect for showing off socks.

In photography classes, they always tell you to pay attention to the background as well as the foreground. It's good advice, and if I had heeded it, you would not be seeing this:

A toenail on the hall carpet. Katie is notoriously bad at picking up after herself.

The weekend after that, I came down with a cold. It is now in the "endless cough that won't go away" stage.

Fortunately, I was never so sick that I couldn't knit.

Off the needles: The mystery stole. I had a needle slippage event, and it was quicker to frog the little bit I had done than it was to repair it. Since then, more of the pattern has become available, and now I'm not sure if I want to make it or not. I'm waiting to see it finished - by someone more ambitious than myself.

On the needles: I replaced the mystery stole with the Mystery Sock at Socktopia.


Yes! Those are circular needles! I'm trying socks on circs again, because I hate being defeated by mere knitting. The ribbing looks a little funky, but once I got into the pattern on the leg, it evened out somewhat. It's a good thing I used circs, though. The leg pattern is over 32 stitches and 14 rows. DPNs would have been a pain in the patootie.

The yarn is some Meileweit I have had for ages. I picked it because it was near the top of the sock yarn box. I think it is too busy for this pattern, but by the time I was into it, I didn't want to start over. Here it is stretched out to show the lacy parts a little better. There are also cables along each side.

Semi-finished

The living room is sort of put back together. Here, from one direction, featuring one of my housemates:

And the other direction and other housemate:

The doors still need to be done, but that will have to wait until later.

The scarves had to come out of the closet in order for T to paint the door frame, though. I didn't realize I had this many. And I wear almost all of them.

Here's a question for you plant people. We've had this plant three or four years. It used to grow straight, but now it leans. What kind of plant is it, and what can be done about it?

That's not helping

As T was painting trim last night, he said, "You know what it looks like? Mustard."

There's light at the end of the tunnel

...and it is Yellow.

We painted half of the living room Saturday, and finished it today. It had been pale peach. Now it is gold, which I love all to pieces. Here it is at the midway point.


The trim was supposed to be a medium gold, but it turned out to be a fairly bright sunflower gold. I compared it to the paint chip. It is definitely not the same color

Katie hid out for awhile, but eventually her desire for attention won out over the funny smells and the way we had rearranged her space.

Next up: Paint the rest of the trim. Start putting furniture back in place. Clear off the bed. Sleep.

Home repair: Phase 2

(No, you didn't miss Phase 1. We had the front steps rebuilt. We forgot to take "before" pictures, so "after" pictures would not be especially impressive.)

Last week, we had our shower replaced. Before, note the wavy walls, the icky grout, and an actual hole where the tile has fallen out.


And after - the tile, and the issues pertaining to it, all gone. This week, Terry painted. I wanted it to be a little more sagey green, but it ended up minty fresh. That's okay, too.


There's not a picture, but we also got new flooring. (No pictures. It's vinyl. It looks like fake tiles. It was the cheapest thing they had at the carpet and flooring store. It's fine.)

Here, Katie studies the obstacle in the hallway while the flooring was being installed.

Our next project, starting tomorrow: Decide on a paint color to go with the blue carpet, barely seen above, and paint the living room. We're thinking maybe gold, but we haven't actually spread the paint chips out on the carpet yet.

Somewhere along the line, I ordered a few things from KnitPicks.

From front: The sock needle set, some sock yarn that was on clearance, lace weight yarn in case I hated the charcoal yarn, and the Koigu pattern book. I wasn't going to buy the Koigu book since I wasn't really interested in most of the patterns. But Miss Violet reported on a recent podcast that the Keepsake Shawl pattern in the book is markedly different from the standalone pattern (as in, correct), so I figured it was a worthwhile investment, especially at 40% off.

Oh, yeah - the charcoal yarn. Frogged it. I'm perhaps the only person who can lose stitches by dropping one end of a circular needle. After spending about 45 minutes painstakingly unknitting and still finding dropped stitches, I decided I could start over and be ahead in time.

Why did I do it? It's a Mystery.

Last week, at almost the very last possible moment, I signed up for the Mystery Stole 3 Knitalong. How it works: You sign up for a Yahoo group. Every week (for six weeks, I think) the designer posts a portion of a pattern for a lace stole. Just knit along with the pattern, and at the end you will have a completed lace stole.

The first obstacle was that the designer specified that the stole would look best in black or white. I don't have any black or white lace weight yarn on hand. I ordered some charcoal Lane Borgosesia Baruffa from the Loopy Ewe, and natural Bare from KnitPicks. Sheri got the charcoal yarn here in record time, so it won the right to move on to the swatching step.

Here's a tip. Don't swatch lace at Stitch 'n' Bitch, especially if the gang is chatty. This is perhaps the most error-ridden swatch in history, but man, did I have a good time knitting it.


Go ahead. Laugh. God knows I did. There should be six neat little arrows like the one at the upper right. No matter. The point was to see if there was enough variation between the yarn-over holes and the plain knitting - and there is.

Step 2, and my second moment of folly, was beads. Beads are optional, but I thought, "What the heck? As long as I am trying new things, I may as well go for broke." So I headed out to a bead store. I know nothing about beads, but I found the 8/0s, and picked one that looked nice with the swatch.

The pattern recommends adding the beads as you go, rather than threading the yarn ahead of time. That requires a teeny crochet hook that will go through the bead. A size 11 slips through the bead, and just barely holds onto the lace yarn.


Finally, today, I started the actual knitting. This is the first 20 rows.

There's still quite a ways to go. The test knit blocked out to 80 inches long. This is about 2 inches.

T and I went through some of the antiques in the hutch today. Katie helped.


For her efforts, she is getting to spend the night with her cat sitter, or as she thinks of it, Kitty's Worst Nightmare. It's not really because of this. Our bathroom remodeling starts tomorrow, and we thought she would be too stressed out by having strangers in the house making noise all day. Going to Mia's house stresses her out, too, but she's been there often enough to know where the good hiding places are.

Mo' FOs

T worked on the Fourth, so I knit. I finished the Opal 6 socks. Amazingly enough, this is the first pair of blue socks I have every finished.

Then, because the neighbor kids were shooting off firecrackers, I kept knitting late into the night and finished the Blue Jeans bag.

It still needs a handle (the pattern calls for a three-stitch I-cord) and a lining, but those should both be easy to accomplish.

At last week's yarn crawl, I limited myself to sock yarn.

From left: Opal Flamingo, Smooshy, Panda Cotton, and the current installment from the Rockin' Sock Club.

The Panda Cotton hit the needles tonight

The pattern is Broadripple from Knitty. The Panda Cotton (actually bamboo and cotton) has some elastic in it, so I'm hoping it works up similarly to the Cascade Fixation of the original. At the moment, it is looking like it might be a bit large, but it is really too soon to tell.

Tonight, Amy returned from her visit to Patternworks bearing gifts. It's a bamboo and wool blend, in very pretty shades of blue. Thanks, Amy!

Even more visitors

This weekend, knitters Alcariel and Mamateja came to town for a party. They joined the KnitWits Friday night for knitting at Borders. Alcariel brought her wheel and started spinning some new roving, which caught the interest of several people. Mamateja worked on her socks for the Rockin' Sock Club.

Saturday, I joined them for a yarn crawl. We covered three stores in 2.5 hours, and *ahem* yarn diets were abandoned. Not by me, mind you. I only bought sock yarn, and (say it with me, knitters) "Sock Yarn Doesn't Count." One is a sport weight, which will be hitting the size 3 "insti-socks" needles as soon as the current sock is done - and it is close.

It turns out Alcariel and I have similar color preferences and are drawn like moths to the bright, rich blues. There was a bit of tug-of-war when we saw this Jordana Paige knitting bag at Purls. After ogling its features and trying it on for size, I backed off and let her buy it. I figured I can go back any time to get one for myself - or put it on my Christmas list.

Saturday night, Terry sweet-talked me into going the observatory with him. Although it was full moon, it was clearer than it had been for several days, and there were a lot of visitors there. The night's big attraction was Saturn and Venus, which were less than a degree apart.

Howie comes to town

Monday night, we were delighted to play host to Piker Press West Coast Editor and maid of all work, Sand. She is driving cross country with her husband, Bernie, and dog, Howie, both of whom are charmingly well-behaved.

I don't know if Howie actually remembered us from our visit to his house, but his cautious phase was very brief, and soon gave way to his wandering around, sniffing us and our things. The only thing he didn't get to sniff was Katie. She took one look and dived under the bed, where she stayed until That Thing was gone. Even Tuesday morning, after they were back on the road, she avoided me, the traitor who allowed That Thing into her home. She's over it now, though.

Work. I don't usually talk about work here, and I won't now, other than to say that there is a lot of stuff going on. Good stuff, planned stuff, but changes nonetheless. Today, I move to my new office and they start installing new equipment. Tomorrow, I get a new boss. Next week, if not sooner, we take on some new business, and we are pitching for other new business. It's exciting, but still stressful.

I'm slacking

Why no posts recently? Because everything is undone. Several bits of knitting are in progress, but not done. I'm sucking wind at Script Frenzy. Work is in upheaval - mostly planned upheaval, with some unplanned, yet positive upheaval on top of it. It's good, but still stressful.

I still haven't downloaded the pictures I took a week ago when T and I took a brief vacation. That's how distracted I am right now.

But get this - I'm reading a book. Yeah, reading took a hit when I started knitting, but I saw one last weekend (while knitting at the bookstore, ironically) that captured my attention. The book is "The Girls" by Lori Lansens. It's a fictional autobiography of conjoined twin sisters. It has really captured me.

Clearing out the sock queue

Obviously, with new sock yarn coming in, I need to start clearing the current socks in progress out of the queue. These are the socks I started on vacation in April.

They are made of sport weight yarn, so are a little heavy for summer, unless I get some Birkies. Note the wildly mismatched fraternal striping. I couldn't have made these babies match if I tried. Here's how much yarn I had left over.

Today, I finished the first Tofutsie sock and cast on the second one. The yarn is splitty and pools funny, but the resulting fabric is really nice. THOSE will be summer socks. I'm also working on another sport weight sock in Opal 6, and the Rockin' Sock Club Sock Of Doom. That would be the February sock, the one on 00 needles. And, I have another square for the Greensburg Project in progress.

Katie is delighted, as usual, by all of the activity.

"Get these things away from me."

Ooh, pretty

This just in from the Lime & Violet shop:

In search of The Duke

On Sunday, KnightStar and I went to Winterset to see John Wayne's birthplace and take a few pictures for the Piker Press. See them here and here. There were a lot of activities on Saturday, but we couldn't get there until Sunday. That's just as well, since neither of us is crazy about big crowds.

I forgot to mention last week, but I had another photo in the Press, of Venus and the Moon. It is here. That one is also going to be in our astronomy club newsletter soon.

I've knit a couple of afghan squares and started a new sock. No, I haven't finished any of the socks-in-progress yet. Leave me alone.

The Haul

When KnightStar started asking for birthday gift suggestions, I handed him the Knit Picks catalog. He did good:

Three books, and the Options needle set, plus chocolates from Chocolaterie Stam. I made a circular needle from the needle set and used them to finish a square for the Greensburg afghan project.
Nice, nice needles. I am very impressed.

When I got home from work, I had a package from my friend Hope.

Last weekend, the KnitWits went to Omaha for a quick yarn shopping excursion. With the help of Alcariel, I added to my stash of Koigu, with the goal of making a Keepsake Shawl at some point. (Or maybe something else. Who knows?) This is the old stuff mixed in with the new:

I though we did pretty good, considering we were trying to coordinate with a bunch of yarn I couldn't describe.

T and I had an early birthday dinner last night, since he had to work today. Today after work, I went to an art opening with some co-workers (free drinks!) and T brought home a piece of cheesecake he nicked from a buffet at his office. Tomorrow, I think the work day will end with more co-workers and more drinks, and then the big KnitWits birthday extravaganza. Amy's birthday is two days after mine, so we get to celebrate together. Felix & Oscar's, stand by!

A good excuse for knitting

Rebuilding Greensburg

I grew up not far from Greensburg, Kansas, the little town that was wiped out by a tornado earlier this month, and the stories of destruction and rebuilding have been of particular interest to me.

A knitter in Kansas wanted to make an afghan for the family that her church "adopted", and she put out the call for donated squares. Judging from the size of the mailbag she received recently, she may have enough squares to make afghans for many families.

Her suggested pattern is a simple diagonal garter stitch square. (The instructions are on the blog link, above.)

If you have some wool or wool blend worsted marinating in your stash, consider making a square or two for this cause.

It's true, except for the "delicate" part

What kind of yarn are you?

You are Shetland Wool. You are a traditional sort who can sometimes be a little on the harsh side. Though you look delicate you are tough as nails and prone to intricacies. Despite your acerbic ways you are widely respected and even revered.
Take this quiz!








Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Gettin' gaudy

Susan at Resolution Every Day recently showed what happened when she started scribbling with her pastels. Hey! I have pastels! And I know how to scribble! And thanks to a big clearance sale at The Art Store, I have a huge sketch pad.

It's not as sublime as Susan's lovely art, but it was massively fun. I call it "Atlas Goes Snowboarding During the Berlin Airlift".

The patroness of the arts was so impressed, she hugged my neck.


(KnightStar would like to point out that he has just updated his blog with some pictures from his nature walks. Zoom in on the deer in the last picture.)

Shopping at the badge store

Recent delurker Goody led me to the Official Badge Generator. My gosh, there are a million possibilities, but probably not this late at night.

Goody mentioned that she knew the Sunbonnet Girl quilt block from her Girl Scout days. (That is the design on the bag in the photo at the link in the previous post. Got that?) As I recall, one year my mom's quilt guild in Kansas had a different pattern in their newsletter each month, all on a Kansas theme. If you made all of the blocks, you would have enough for a sampler wall hanging. That was probably in the late 70s or early 80s. I don't know if she made all of the blocks, but she immediately saw the possibilities for this one.

Storm at Sea

This week is the Mother's Day issue of the Piker Press. One of my pictures accompanies my contribution to the article, Reminds Me Of My Mother.

One of the items in the picture is a quilted wall hanging that my mom made for me. Here it is, unfurled and displayed by KnightStar:

I love all of of the motion in that design. If I did hard drugs, this would be the thing I contemplated for hours on end.

Speaking of arty things, what is more dramatic than the Sphinx?

(Almost) Every Day In May

I'm a little late starting, but what the heck? French Toast Girl invites us all to be creative Every Day In May. I need to pull some illustrations together for the next issue of the Piker Press, so I may as well get extra credit for them.

Anyway, Aser adjudicated that knitting also counts as creative. So there.