Starting over

So, the other night I spent the whole evening pulling out my Kauni. I'm stilling going to use the traveling leaves design from the Tailored Jacket pattern but I'm using Ruth Sorensen's cardigan pattern for shaping and gauge. Since it looks pretty sack-y in the pics on Ravelry, I'm adding some waist shaping as well - 3 sets of decreases (at 10, 12 and 14 cm) and 3 increases (at 16, 18 and 20 cm). I've put so much time and thought into this now, the damn thing better fit. Here are some pictures of my progress so far - one with flash and one without. Neither gets the color quite tight, it's somewhere in the middle.

Happy holidays!

Don't know about anyone else but I have ton of baking lately, which always makes me happy. Pecan pie, cookies, more cookies and cinnamon bread. That last was made just to be used in French toast tomorrow. How decadent.
For knitting, my aim for 2013 is to work in color. I've spent the last couple months working in earth tones and I've had it. Kauni, here I come!
So I hope everyone is having some wonderful time, hopefully off, with good company.

Random thought of the day

Because I drive a lot (I'm a supercommuter) I ride along on my husbands Audible account. Which I love. And I'm really dull, which you might expect (Austin, Brontes, books on the NSA) but I did want to mention my favorite podcasts. Along with Knitpicks, I'd recommend Mile Duncan's The History of Rome, Kevin Stroud's History of English and any of the Naked Science podcasts - Naked Genetics is my favorite.
Thoughts for the weekend.
And here's our tree - now the house smells nice.

So, it doesn't look like much

And I'm going to put fewer beads on it than the first version (Goddess Nut) but its coming along. For whatever reason all my Christmas knitting this year was in neutrals and I'm dying to rip out my Kauni and redo it in this vest (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/trellis-waistcoat) maybe or the Kauni sweater (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/kauni-rainbow-cardigan) which would be simpler but I'd want to fit it a bit. Just anything with color!
I also really love the Veyla mitts and want to try them in Chroma - maybe with a matching hat? I have some leftovers from the second Stained Glass sweater I made for Elaine, maybe she can be my guinea pig.

Soccer and number 5 of 5

Our final soccer tournament of the year. So, I got some work done one the last knitting present. Our parents also got so rowdy that the ref lodged a complaint with the tournament officials. Nice.

Blocking and buttons

Here are the Veyla blocked, with buttons for our niece. The little wants a pair in dark blue now. Here are Pipet and Hallett's drying too.

Finishing things

Well, I'm down to the last knitted present. Not sure if I want to do a shawl or a sweater. I suspect my issue is I think pearlescent is ugly, and I'd be happy making either with another color. Sigh.

Pre-Thanksgiving tradition

I hope everyone is gearing up for a fun and safe holiday. Every year for Thanksgiving eve we have baked Brie in puff pastry for dinner and chocolate mousse. And we watch Charlie Brown. I also made cornbread for stuffing tomorrow.

Oh yeah

Here's number 3 - Pipit again in Sugarbunny. It's nice, very soft and works wonderfully for this pattern. I like that our kitty is in this picture because the way you knit the pattern, it makes me think of the Cheshire Cat appearing.

Those pictures

Here are my first couple Xmas presents. We had soccer all weekend so I got more done on number 3 and started number 4 as well.

It's been a long time, sorry

It's been a long time, sorry.  But if you haven't abandoned me, I can say I've been knitting Christmas presents.  I have 3.5 out of 5 done and I only started in October, so I feel pretty good about my chances of getting this done and still having time to ship them.  I'll post some pictures tonight.

Today at work, I noticed I have these 2 birds outside my window, they look like they're playing chess.  Watch the video here.  Then they fight, one leaves, the other sits in the tree outside my window looking all hunchy and territorial until the first one comes back, then they play chess again and fight more.  It's sort of fascinating, so I filmed it and I'm posting it here.

Hopefully everyone is getting ready to have a relaxing holiday - we're going to make this stuffing (it's totally awesome, we tried it last weekend) and some of the usual fun stuff - like white chocolate mousse and pecan pie.  I'll have Wednesday at least partially to myself to go grocery shopping and clean, which is always kind of fun.  We don't go anywhere or see anyone for Thanksgiving, usually, so it's quiet and nice.  Which of course is making us flirt with getting a dog, because too little chaos just isn't allowed in our world.

I've been trying to get back to abandoned projects this year, and I have on thing I need to take out and do over.  My Kauni jacket isn't gong to fit, so I need to to repurpose the yarn - I've seen a really cool vest pattern on Ravelry . . . .  but if you do a pattern search for Kauni vest you get some pretty awesome stuff.

Okay, lunch is over, back to work!

Pipit is done!

Needs to be washed, but I like this reuse of this yarn.

Pipet

So, last night I ripped out the whole body of Pipet. I seem to have mismatched shoulder and torso sizes. So, I'm going to end up reknitting every part of this freakin thing at least twice. I think I'll really like it, and the cotton linen blend will be great for fall down south. I also like being a grown up and learning to just rip when I need to.
I'm also starting to be really annoyed that I'm not using up this lovely old silk I've had for 20 years. I've hauled it out to the living room so ill be annoyed - I mean inspired. I'm thinking maybe a diagonal stripe like this this?

All official and everything

My new car and its new plate. Both supporting a nice cause and its sort of work humor. Get it?

Mmmm

Dinner - http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2012/10/pimenton-roast-chickens-with-crispy-potatoes and I'm nearly done with the top of Pipit. Looks like a Thneed.

This is nice

I was hanging on to some Full Circle in Robin (http://www.knitpicks.com/yarns/Full_Circle_Worsted_Yarn__D5420221.html) and not sure what it would work for. Maybe something like this? http://www.knittingdaily.com/media/p/101736.aspx.

Back

So, awhile back, my life went nuts. My work life, my real life is fine. Not bad, just busy to the point of not remembering to use the restroom all day. Then my phone went into decline (failing battery) and then died. It was kind of a drag and killed blogging for me.
Any how, new staff, new budget year and new phone.
I've been doing lots of knitting - lots of it kind of dull. I made some mittens for the annual horse barn event:

And I started Pipet - twice. First time was with Galileo which was lovely but the gauge was off and then I pulled out the Green Mtn Spinnery tunic I'd stalled out in Cotlin to use for it. Some I'll learn that stalling out means I hate it
I also made some socks for a coworker who retired, but I have all this awesome yarn I have to use. Thinking of doing Rosa Rugosa in the Galileo with long sleeves. The bamboo makes it wearable next to the skin.

Mittens!

Sent from my iPodMy annual charity donation for my coworker ...

Stained glass pullover again

Yes, again.
Or how my knitting brain finally got a break and came up with something to journal here again.

So, my iPhone died.  Which is whatever I guess (I do need to get a cheap replacement for a little while so my child can call me when he gets home from school), but it meant that I had no music to run to tonight.
Now, a year ago, this would have s*cked, big time.  But I'm now enough in the groove of running 3 miles that I no longer NEED music to get my pace set and jolly me through it.  So I was running and looking at the clouds, which were all pink and red and purple, and thinking about knitting (duh) and thought how pretty they looked.  How nice it would be in a fair isle, except Alice Starmore already did that one and it's honestly not really my palette anyway.  Hmmm, palette - knitpicks, mmmmm, that idea I had for using an Islamic mosaic tile pattern for color inspiration last winter - I really like the idea of the blues and yellow golds with little shots of turquoise and lavender.  But coming up with a whole fair isle design and placing all that?  Oof, exhausting.  But wait - that could be PERFECT for another stained glass pullover - work it at the original gauge with 2 sets of palette stranded together, background would be blues and the panes would be golds.

In other news, I finished Vitamin D and LOVE IT, but I need to wash it again because my handdyed wants to bleed on me.  Yuck.  I also am making some dull mittens to take a brain rest and use up some yarn and have a comfy fingering swatch in the dryer right now so I can see about making a lightweight cotton cardigan, like the Featherweight by Hannah Fetig.

No pics, well, no phone.  Yes, we have a camera, but I don't know where it is.

Deer

In our back yard - she had twins but you can only see one very well here.
Spent the day taking the little one to meet the teacher day at middle school (he's starting 6th grade!) and then to Walmart. Walmart sucks. But we're ready. Or we have supplies - I guess that doesn't really equate, does it?
I'm almost done with Vitamin D which I love - the hand dyed is awesome and it's forced me to learn to felt graft as I go because you really have to alternate balls as you go with hand dyed, even from the same pot. But it is a boatload of straight stitch. And I hope to get a snap of Tumbleweed this week at knitting. I could use to go to our knitting group.

Cake

Note the theme animal print candles. The clerk at Publix thought I was a sad, crazy cat lady buying my cat a cake. He seemed relieved when I explained that I was just lame.

Again, a long gap

July has been pretty busy and I've been working on things - I started Vitamin D in some hand dyed I made and I'm working on my cotton tumbleweed - and I started these new socks; Zoknis. The pattern isn't as leafy as I was hoping for. Between Ravelry as a place to log projects and having less (read no) time to design, I feel like my posting isn't all that interesting the last year or so. And man, if there aren't already a metric ton of knitting blogs out there.
I finally gave up on listening to Knitpicks podcasts - they got repetitive all in a row, even for me. I've moved on to the Naked Science podcasts. I aspire to be smart enough to understand genetics for the layperson.

Going back to things

Like my cotton tumbleweed. I got to the end of the back and decided I didn't want to deal with shoulder seams so I winged a neck opening. It may be too large, but I can work a band around it with a cable then do a little rib edge. Knitpicks Dishie is really nice, good hand in cables.
Also, I have had the horrible summer cold this week. There's something so pathetic about sneezing and coughing when it's 104 out.

Another tiny sweater

Is done! Buttons and everything. In with the wash tonight.
Also, pictures of my flowers a juvenile doe keeps eating on me. See the bald stalks??




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It's been a while

Sorry - things have been busy and to be frank, the knitting I've been doing isn't all that interesting.
I finished the beaded Cecily jacket - it was lovely, but too big on me. So I sent it to my mom. I also designed a tiny little Aran sweater for Mel's baby, Amelia. I hope she likes it. And I'm finishing up 2 more Korrigans in Knitpicks Comfy fingering. I have all these other things I want to get to - an entralac vest in leftover Chroma, using up some fingering silk I got for Christmas back in the mid 80s, use my new Green Mountain Spinnery yarn, make a Vitamin D in some fingering weight Stroll I dyed, finish up the 9 things on needles. Oh well. I'll get some done today in the car on the way to Columbus for a 5k. Here are some recent pics:















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Baby aran done

I love this little thing - it's so soft and intricate and cute.  I hope Mel does too.

I'm nearly done with Goddess Nutt, too.  I'm just doing the edging, I'll take a snap outside and see if I can't do it justice.

Baby Aran back

Obsession

I think hobbies are good things - you know, healthy outlet for creativity, adult play and all that. That said, many people have found my love of knitting verging on unhealthy. I certainly have a borderline obsessive personality, so I try to keep it under control. But here are some undeniable signs of obsession. Here's a picture of my closet. That's scary. I spent my lunch time today designing and drawing out a pattern for a friend at work who has too much Habu linen. Like lots of sketches and time with measuring tape. It's going to be a custom garment that should fit, and suit, her perfectly. And yes, you really can do that in an hour. And finally, I've been systematically going through the KnitPicks podcasts to listen to them all. Jesus, who does that? Anyway, I just wanted to give a mention to 3 of my favorites; 63 (tips and tricks - great even if you're not a new knitter), 56 (yarn weight sand spinning) and 58 (interview with Stephanie McPhee). Kelley P.'s voice and delivery works better in interviews, I think (I found her a bit stilted and off-putting at first) but I'm getting very fond of her.
Oh, and check out this place here http://autumnhollowfarm.com/?page_id=237. Bling on your niddy noddy folks?
Yup. Beyond hope.

No running tonight

Georgia weather - thunder out of what looks like clear blue sky and suddenly clouds boil up like a children's movie or a bad 80's video. Wind comes from all directions and the birds all shut up. Not as bad as when the sky turns green and starts to rotate, but not running for us.

Nearly there

It's been a lot of boring straight stitch, but I'm nearly to the border. Not sure if I'll bead it - seems like the beads would both sit in less comfortable places as well as not wear so well (the color can get a little dinged). I'm going to miss this "movie knitting". Maybe I'll make another one.

New book

I love GMS. Their yarn is so lovely and while I don't always love their designs, some of them are just hits right out of the park.
Like this. Love. Want for fall. In red. Excited.

My new little friend

Who seems to be living by our back porch. She didn't hop away from me tonight. I don't know if it's a she - probably not my friend either.

Because

It's kind of funnier if you've seen the packaging for the Thor costume. :)

Some days

Things are just odd. Like when you come home and your son puts on his full body Thor suit with hammer to eat dinner in.
Anyway ....
I'm thinking about designing a cotton sweater sort of like my favorite fitness fleeces - with curved side panels to flatter the body. Also use 2 color (ivory and parchment, say) as well as right and wrong side stockinette to make the lines more defined. I will draw a picture to show you what I mean.
For now this is my cat right after I said his favorite word:
"Treats!"

Here's a larger view

Tough to see as its black and this shot was taken in our hideous bathroom, but you probably get the idea.