Just so you know

This little one?



She is the one you can blame for the lack of knitting content. I'm just saying. Her sister spends a rather large portion of her time asleep, but this little one prefers to be petted at all times and is rather insistent. If shoving her head under your hand doesn't work or if you move the hand out of reach of the head, she will reach out and paw. I love her. I love her sister, too, which is why I am not posting any pics of her snoring with her face smished oddly and her tongue hanging out. We will wait for a more glamorous shot.

However, between housepainting and potty training, knitting time is minimal at best. I did put in some good time on Shedir Sunday night (did I blog about that already?), but I didn't get any knitting done.

I did, however, do a little bit of spinning while I was standing there talking to my friend as she painted. (When I say I am painting my house...I mean that she is painting my house and I am providing food, moral support, and readings from the Yarn Harlot books - and when she leaves? SHE thanks ME. Go figure.)

My spinning is still horribly uneven but I think I am improving somewhat. What really surprised me was how much I actually enjoyed it. I was more relaxed than I had been in the class, I think, and I wasn't going at it for hours on end, so it was pretty good. This pleased me. I believe I shall, in fact, spin again.

Just a Little Bit

This weekend I brought the pups home and we have been getting acquainted, getting our routine down, and working on our potty training. They are old girls, very sweet and loveable, but prone to sleep a lot. One is curled up by my side as I type this. I am grateful she is sleeping because otherwise she would be pawing at my hand for pets. She is very demanding.

I went to a drop spindle class yesterday, and it was interesting. I can't show you a picture of my God-awful first homespun skein, because I left it behind!! Oops!! I am not settled on whether I like doing it or not - I think I will have to practice more and get at least marginally decent at it before I can decide if I like it. Still, I'm glad I took the class - even if I did have the absolute worst skein of yarn in the class, hands down!!

I have not finished the Snug Harbor for them.



But I will. Tonight I am working on Shedir. Getting a little bored with plain stockinette, so the change is nice.

I still haven't worked on my Beginner's Triangle. Once again, teh stuff for everyone else is taking precedence over the stuff for me! That's okay, though - I will work on it when the time is right. I'm not going to fret over it.

Where's the knit??

Well...I have been busy. Busy doing pretty much everything EXCEPT knitting! I am trying to finish the painting in my kitchen. This weekend we replaced all the outlets on the main floor of the house. The existing ones were covered in paint. The previous owners did not, apparently, take the wall plates out or bother to go around the sockets - they just went right over them, making them all a crackled peach color that looked gross and sloppy. I have replaced them with black and the wall plates are all black iron to go with my wrought iron accents. I got a mirror for the powder room and got that hung up last night.

Also, I am adopting a dog, a 5 lb senior Yorkie from a rescue, and I have been busy getting through that application process and preparing my home for that as well.

Therefore, I haven't gotten much done. A couple more rounds on Shedir, and I started a Snug Harbor for the new addition(s - they are trying to talk me into taking her sister too and I am really not feeling strong enough to resist) to my family. I am almost at the bottom decreases, but not quite. I think I may try knitting the bottom double so that it is a little extra thick.

Working on the Socks for Soldiers socks on Sundays and during choir practice. These are so great for no-brain knitting, when I need something that I can do while chatting and visiting with people or otherwise splitting my attention, and since they are for such a good cause I never feel any guilt for working on them instead of other projects.

Does anyone else have that guilt thing? I sometimes feel bad for working on stuff for me instead of things that are meant for gifts, or if I have put a lot of work into a project and then put it down for something simpler. Maybe I am just weird.

Anyway, hopefully the knitting will resume in earnest next week. We are supposed to finish painting tomorrow evening, and then I can put the kitchen back together. I pick up the babies on Friday and will spend the weekend getting them settled in - with the exception of my spinning class on Saturday afternoon. I still have some little things I need to do for the house - ordering new blinds, hanging the curtains, and changing out the switches, but that is about 1 weekend's work (I hope). Then the main floor of my house will be all arranged and happy, and I can go back to knitting in contentment.

All is forgiven

As always, I forgive Knit Picks their slow shipping because I am always happy when the package finally arrives. Along with my replacement needles, I got Harmony needles in 3 other sizes (so now I have a pair each in 7, 8, 9, and 10...plus a spare 7 from the broken set), as well as two pairs of nickel 3's and a pair of nickel 1's to aid my sock knitting efforts. I got the 3's for the cast on and first few rows and the 1's for the heels, since I use 2's for socks.

I am loving the chart keeper. It made working on Shedir much easier last night. The place holder magnet kept me from having to search all over the chart for the row I was working on, and the keeper sat nicely over the arm of my sofa and, later, on my bed. Very nice. I did knock it off the sofa once at which point all the magnets kind of went flying, but no big. I put them all back and I knew what row I was on, so I was fine. I finished the repeat I was on and got halfway through the second repeat. The pattern is visible now and it looks very nice, though I do lament using such a dark color. The color is beautiful, though, and the texture is nice, so I am not too fussed.

I could really use a hat and gloves for myself, but I refuse to go buy what I would rather knit, and yet I don't know when I will get around to knitting them! I can keep Shedir if I think it will be too big for Leslie's sister so at least I will have a hat. I have the chenille scarf I made ages ago. I just need something for my hands. Time to plot!

No News

My Big Black Socks are up to 9 inches now, so yay for that. I have made no progress on Shedir because I lost the pattern, which I had enlarged so that I could read the chart better, and had to print it out and enlarge it again. I finally had it again yesterday plus the leisure time to work on it...but the SO was sick and comforting him became my priority. This comfort mostly consisted of holding him while he lounged on me, which prevented me from also holding my needles (don't think I didn't consider it, but it was immediately obvious that it wouldn't work).

The yarn for Odessa has arrived, and I expect my KnitPicks order to arrive today. I love Knit Picks, I really do. I love their yarns and I love their prices.

I HATE their shipping. It is the only complaint I have with them. The yarn leaves their distribution center in OH, gets to WV in a day...and sits there for exactly 3 days. Almost every time. On the third day, it leaves WV and usually gets delivered the next day. So, I really ought to get it in two days...but instead, I get it in no less than 5. I think I'd be happier if they had a tracking system that didn't tell me where the stuff was. I would much rather believe that it takes 5 days to transport yarn from OH to VA rather than knowing it only takes two to three days and that the additional time is entirely designed to DRIVE ME CRAZY.

I think it is a scheme on the FedEx end to make sure that our stuff does not get to us so fast that we have no reason to get expedited shipping. FedEx is evil.

Picture Time

Ends:



Wristwarmers from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts in Knit Picks Swish Superwash, Indigo Heather.

And Beginnings:



Shedir in Knit Picks Merino Style Dusk.



Big Black Socks for Socks for Soldiers, in Regia Black. This yarn is bleeding all over my hands and it is not even wet yet. I am going to have to be careful when I wash it. When I have been working on these socks for a while, I get a black line across the base of my middle three fingers and another at the top of my index finger, from the way I wind the yarn around my hand. Oh well - there are worse things in life than striped fingers!

Shedir Style

I started Shedir last night with Knit Picks Merino Style, the yarn I am considering for Eris. I like the yarn, it makes a soft fabric and does not split. I find that Swish is a little splitty and tends to snag if I am not careful. It seems like the plies untwist a little. I am not having that problem at all with Merino Style.

The hat is coming out a little bigger than I expected. Once I had finished casting on, the stitches fit comfortably around my 24 inch circular (My options needles do not have cables shorter than 24" so I usually use 2 circs for all my hats). The pattern calls for a 16 inch and says that the circumference of the fitted hat should be 17 inches. I'm not sure quite what to make of that. I am using needles a size larger than those recommended, but I always default to at least one size larger because I am quite a tight knitter.

I have decided not to worry about it. It is obvious to me that it will still fit my head at the size it currently is. I did kind of want to give it away to a friend of mine at church for her sister who has cancer. This friend had told me that her sister has trouble finding hats that fit because her head is kind of small, and I was hoping that the stretch in this hat would accommodate it. Oh well - I will finish it and then decide whether it is too big or not. I have also ordered supplies to knit Odessa, and I think that one will definitely fit her.

I wanted to knit Shedir both as a trial run on the yarn and for cable practice. I can see that the color I'm knitting with, Dusk, is far too dark for this kind of cable work. It is a beautiful color, but it will make for rather subtle cables. I have another color, Storm, that is more of a blue-green and somewhat lighter than the dusk. I will have to give that a try and see what I think.

Last night I got a few rows past the brim, so not bad for an evening's work. I plan to continue working on it tonight, and to also go ahead and cast on for my first pair of Big Black Socks for Socks for Soldiers, so that I have a pair ready to work on at choir practice tomorrow.

I ordered two balls of Cashsoft for the Odessa hat, figuring that that way I wouldn't risk running out. If I don't use the second skein, I can just make two! I ordered three different colors of beads since I wasn't entirely sure of the color of the yarn. You never can tell on the web. It was all I could do to hold back on buying yarn for scarves for two of my guy friends, but I really shouldn't spend any more money this month - I have already kind of gone overboard.

Successes & Setbacks

Look how cute it turned out with all the finishing touches!!



I'm very pleased. The recipient liked it very much.

Here is the hat that went with the gloves I posted previously, finally photographed:



The imperial armwarmers are finished and gifted. That means I am done with all the things I promised to do for other people! I feel very relieved - I will be careful not to promise so much in the future. I will still give stuff away regularly and make notes of things people say they would like to have, but I won't tell them until it's done.

I am currently working on the Beginner's Triangle from a Gathering of Lace, but I don't have a picture of it yet. It's working well, but I discovered after several pattern repeats that I have been doing yarnovers wrong this whole time. Once I started doing them right my lace looked much more open, and I had a much easier time overall. The way I was doing them before caused the yarnovers to be backwards, and made the next row a real pain to knit because of the way they pulled the stitches. I had to start over twice after one or two pattern repeats because I just kept getting confused and losing count and a million other things. Now that I am doing yarnovers correctly and using stitch counters and a lifeline, things are going much more smoothly. The yarn is Fleece Artist Suri Blue, and it is very sticky, so unknitting can be a bit of a challenge - and I am doing a lot of unknitting. It seems like I can't make it more than a row or two without getting messed up and having to back up and redo it. The thing would be twice as large if I did not keep having to stop and backup. But, this is part of the process of learning, and I am trying to take it in good humor. At least now I am able to recognize mistakes sooner and figure out what I probably did, and back up and fix it, rather than just wailing and weeping and ripping. I think I will improve with practice, and I am still really enjoying the piece despite the frustrations. However, last night when I crawled onto the bed I landed my knee right on my Knit Picks Harmony needle and snapped it in two. I've ordered a replacement pair, but work is stalled until it comes.

I had a mishap with the second skein of Starry Night yarn for my socks. I did something really stupid and ended up with a horrible tangled mess that took me a couple of hours to fix. I did eventually fix it, and rewound the skein, but the yarn is looking a little worse for wear.

This weekend I knitted a pair of wristwarmers which are intended for hospital patients that one of my church friends serves. That was a quick, easy project from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, and it only took one skein of KnitPicks Swish Superwash.

I have also joined Socks for Soldiers, and my sock kit came in the mail this week, so starting those Big Black Socks is on my radar.

I can't decide what else to start on - the lace is great for a big complicated project, the socks (both black and otherwise) are great portable knitting, but I need a project sort of in between those levels of difficulty. Time to browse my ravelry queue!