I got more mail

So, here we have some Cotlin for a rugby style sweater for the little one (Cedar and Planetarium) and some Comfy worsted in October for another take at the white sweater in something soft.

Problem with October - I look kind of hideous in orange.  I have blue and orange eyes (I even took a picture so you could see, but that disembodied eye is kind of freaky, sorry about that), light brown hair and skin that is just a little too sallow to work with most earth tones.  But I like them, more and more as I get older.  So, I will knit my d*mn sweater and either a.) give it to my sister who does look good in such colors or b.) stubbornly wear it myself and look like I'm about to vomit the whole time.

And here are some pictures of 5 minutes of fun with beads and earring hooks.  The big round beads are Moss Agate.  There's a lot of variation in the 16 inch strand, so you need to match them carefully.  Kitties love to help with that, in case you were wondering.

New Pattern available - DIY Mittens

So, today a coworker asked for my help with something she's knitting. It's a blouse with a fitted top and a Rowan kidsilk haze (aka kidsilk crack if you've ever felt it, so lovely) sort of skirt - it's going to be lovely, but she wasn't happy with how the top part rolled, was worried it would mess up the drape of the lighter skirt part. I told her to rip up the cast on edge and knit it back down in 2 rows of seed stitch so it would be flat. Long story short, I spent some time showing her how to insert the life line, how to undo a cast on and tink back. While this was all going on, she asked about the soccer mom mittens I've been working on. So, for Amy, I've worked up a DIY mitten pattern - includes sizes kids medium, women's small and medium large and a men's medium. But the graph is blank - for 99 cents you can print it off over and over and design your own mittens in as many or as few colors as you like. Got a zillion little balls of space dyed sock yarn (the craze of 2005-2008?) but not enough desire for that many socks, well, now you can use it up in a fun way.
Available here and on Ravelry, just 99 cents and I'll make up some season graphs to use with it too. Still working on the Olympian, supposed to be in the 50's here this weekend - whoo hoo!

Making progress - minor tho' it may be

So, over the weekend I finished one sleeve on the Olympian pullover - while that shouldn't be a problem, my haphazard way of designing as I go (and believe me, I had good intentions this time, sat down, did the math, wrote it all out, knit it up a couple times, found my math had lied [it always does] had to rip it out, which is hard with all those paired yarn changes) has made getting this sleeve done right a big deal. Anyway, I should be coasting downhill now and I'll type up my notes for this pattern once I finish. The fabric is nice, but I've posted it a couple times so the next pictures will be of it on.

The black peacock is also coming a long, but it is slow and fiddly, down to the last skein. I finally completed the written directions to this one, previously I only had charts. Not everyone loves charts like I do, but I find writing out direction to defy my brain's wiring. For a right handed person, I'm a pretty visual thinker. I'll post that update on Ravelry tomorrow.

And finally, we ate dinner at our local diner this weekend. All hail diners! I love diner food. The veggie of the day was brussel sprouts. Now, I like vegetables but I grew up in the 70's so it was all frozen stuff in square boxes and usually involved Lima beans so I definitely have my "danger Will Robinson" items. Cabbage and brussel sprouts are two of these. And these puppies did not disappoint; they were AWFUL. Boiled to death, over salted, mushy, couldn't have had a single vitamin left in them. They were so gross and bad they exercised a sort of sick fascination. My husband and I kind of got into a contest eating the dang things.

Sneaking in vitamin A and fiber

So last night for dinner I made sweet potato pancakes. I took it as a good sign that the little one took a bite and said "mmm, they taste like pancakes" and then wolfed them all down before getting back to his bacon. Kids and bacon, it's kind of crazy, esp. my kid. So, if you like breakfast for dinner, that's a winner.
I made a couple things last night - a necklace for the little one and a pair of earrings. I really like the earrings - moss agate and sterling and beads. I'll take a picture tonight. Not sure what I'm going to do with them, maybe I'll finally get off my butt and start up that Esty shop.

I got mail

Beads!
Ugh, I'm starting to feel nasty in the throat. And I've had a flu shot.
Sigh.

Soccer mittens

These are really basic, so you don't have to look while you knit, which enhances watching kids playing soccer. These are coming out pretty well, I think. With the space dyed yarn, simple can really be nice. Because they're not double stranded, they're coming out pretty small - they fit me, but I have freakishly small hands (Austin Powers would be afraid of me).

The peacock is on hold, I'm waiting on beads. Indy loves anything that hangs off the table.

See that fat white belly he has??? It's so white and soft and fuzzy, I expect a baby penguin to poke it's head out any time now.

Some stuff

Well, it's been a crazy week. Here are the soccer mittens - some of the food colored silk and wool and palette. Watching U8 soccer seems to be my single unalloyed pleasure these days. I'm going to use a design out of The Mitten Book, one of my all time favorites.

And believe it or not, I'm more than half done with skein 3 of 4 of the black peacock. In progress pictures of these things don't look nearly as interesting as I find them. Percy's sweater kind of had a stall out when I started a sleeve and didn't like the decrease intervals, so I have to redo that.

I thought I had more to say, maybe I'll remember over night.

Making this quick

Very busy weekend, flu shots, multiple soccer games - all in all, it was great. I love soccer season and have started some green/blue food color dyed silk and wool and green wool mittens to celebrate. Because I don't have enough things on needles now.

Here's something fun for your Monday:
http://whywouldyouknitthat.blogspot.com/
I'm adding this to my bloglines subscription. Frickin' awesome!

Fun weekend, knit some

The winter peacock is coming along. At first I thought I would do all the beading in grey and white, but I really didn't end up liking it, so the bead colors will end up being the same as the first one, the major change is that the eye centers are white, not gold.
And here we have Percy, take 2. This one is great for hours spent watching Infamous being played.

Doodle Flower

6 months of thinking, 130 seconds of scribbling.
Back to work.

I had plans for today

So I had big plans today because we're having stuff done to the bathroom - which the cat hates. He hides on dad's sweaters whenever anyone other than the three of us is in the house. But then the little one got sent home with a tummy ache. I'm 1 small part away from finishing the written out directions for the peacock and I had hoped to finish today. But here's a snap of my latest stab at the Winter Peacock.

Undoing Peacock number 2

I got through the first skein of black silk and wool for the night Peacock, and realized I didn't like it. Not subtle, it was muddy. I ripped it all back out and I'm now going to get different beads and try again. This time I think I'm going to go with bright colored beads again.

Back on track

It took 2 plus nights of ripping and sorting, but the Olympian Pullover is back to "knitting".
Kudos to the yarn, it held up to this sad state of affairs quite well.
So, give it a week or two and maybe I'll have something.
Happy weekend . . . .

Sigh.

There was more internal cursing before, but I'm moving through the stages towards acceptance. Tried on the Olympian, didn't like it up to increases on the sleeves. So I'm ripping it out. Which is a big fat pain in the butt when you alternate 6 colors of yarn.
Sigh.
Lots of sorting out to do.
Double sigh.

Vacation

Took an overnight trip up north (this is the trail from Unicoi State Park to Helen, GA). It's a very pretty time of year. I had no idea there were so many different kinds of mushrooms; brown, purple, red, orange, white, sulfur yellow. I only posted a handful of the pictures I took (because I take cr@p pictures). Down at the bottom is a snap of some knitting.
Happy holiday weekend -

It's not quite as stripy as this makes it look

But it's all my favorite colors and it's SO SOFT.
So now I'm hoping for a very cold winter!

It was finally kind of cool enough to wear this

AKA look who needs a haircut - me!
It's very soft and nice, but my one crack on the yarn is that it's so soft and even that it shows any imperfection rather glaringly. There's one stitch up by the neck and it's impossible to miss. Otherwise, I'd call this one a perfect yarn/pattern match.
Still working on Percy, fast but not very photogenic yet. I'll post some soon.

Oh look at that . . .

At what? you may ask.
Yeah, it's kinda like the Cheshire Cat appearing slowly on a branch, starting with the neck and working down.
Doubling the City Tweed DK gives a super bulky 3 sts./in fabric but it's really nice and soft. Since the color slubs are the same for all these colors, the fabric thus far is pretty nice.
It's a loose roll neck pattern, I'll post it when I finish.

Pictures that stink

I'm halving the lines of beads on this version, both to keep the shawl lighter and to speed up knitting it. The second picture is cr*p, but colors look more realistic.

Persephone's Peacocks

So, I started on the formal wear version of the peacock. It's going to be hard to get decent pictures of, but this should give you the idea.
And it occurred to me:
Persephone lives half the year above ground in fields and tending crops (first peacock) and half the year in the Underworld with Hades (this peacock). One of the legends I read talked about Hades building Persephone a garden made of precious metals and jewels, flowers and trees and birds and animals all made from gold and gems, which sort of works for this colorway I think. So these two could be a set. (Yes, I know peacocks are Hera's birds, but I'm riffing I guess.)
I've been listening to Bullfinch's Mythology and it's lots of fun (goes with the Percy Jackson books). Got this stuff on the brain.