an amusing knitting related story

    To begin with, my Hubs had surgery on his hand in December and spent nearly three months home with me recuperating. I was concerned that it would drive me crazy having him home with me. It turned out to be a really wonderful time.


    So, while he was home, he was able to take care of some things. Nothing physical, which really frustrated him, but stuff got done that needed doing. One day, he and our son had to go to the local County Clerks office. As soon as they got their ticket, their number was called. They went up to the indicated window, and the woman behind the counter was occupied counting dollar bills. My Hubs, being essentially evil, began counting, just loud enough that she could hear him. He was trying to mess her up.


    Over her glasses, she shot him an evil look. He laughed and told her that he does that to his wife all the time, when she's trying to count her knitting stitches. The woman was not amused. When she was done with her counting, she looked at Hubs, and told him " You, I will not be dealing with!". Then she turned to our son, and said "What can I do for *you* today?" 


    When Hubs told me that, I laughed! He can be so shameless! But I was grateful for the support of someone who was obviously another crafter. That anonymous woman has my deepest thanks. And I'm sure I have her sympathy! 

Rambling on a Sunday

    My hands hurt. See, I joined a knitting group on facebook, read through all through all their rules and nonsense, and now my hands hurt from clenching them and not typing smart ass response comments to some of the stupidest things I have ever read.


    If I do comment, I'd for sure be thrown out of the group and banned for life. I mean, seriously? Someone buys a  36" circular needle and wants to know if she can make a baby hat with it??? What baby does she know that has a head that big??


    At least I can vent here. In other news, my camera battery is dead. My Jeep is still in the hospital. My pool rehab, however, is coming along nicely! I am not allowed to post any photos of that, however. Just take my word for it, Club Scheffler will be the place to go swimming next year! I just hope it's all done by my birthday, as my one wish is to swim in my pool on that day. They have 27 days until then. And I'm watching. So it will be done just in time to close it for the season. But no matter how cold the water is, I want to swim on my birthday.


    We will have a new dark liner, and steps to get into the pool. We will have a new surround/walkway and even a new fence around the pool. It's all very exciting. I can't wait until it's all done!


    As far as knitting goes, I am plugging away on two 10 Stitch Blankets, and occasionally pick up one of the many other WIPs that are in a time-out. I have plans to make a very unique, crocheted scarf that a friend designed. I brought out all of my Malabrigo worsted weight wool that I could find in my stash, just for this project. I just need to get out my swift and ball winder and get to work.
  

Notes on the Bucket Bag

    After publishing the pattern, I realized you should know about the mistakes too. The pattern is fine, it's all about yarn choice. I found some pretty variegated wool in my stash, and wanted to make a bucket bag with it. I had a lot, so I doubled it up and used 2 strands at once. It makes for a thicker, more heavy duty bag.



    I crocheted the bottom, and made it bigger than the one in the pattern photo. That one turned out kind of small. Here's what the bottom looks like on the finished bag:

    After picking up the stitches around the circle, I quickly realized why a variegated yarn isn't good for the bottom of the bag..... Here's what the rest of the bag looks like:

    The colors on the crocheted bottom are in blocks, due to the way double crochet works. Then the stripes on the body of the bag are from knitting in the round. I was dismayed, but I still love this bag! As you can see, I ran out of the variegated wool before the bag was tall enough, so I finished it with a denim wool, from the same company. I believe it was Patons Classic. This bag remains one of my favorite project bags, even with the weird color splotched bottom.


    So, dear readers, my advice to you is if you choose to make this bag, save your variegated wool yarn for the body, and use a solid color for the bottom!  And remember, you can make the base as big as you want, and the body as long as you want!


    In all actuality, the bag in the pattern photo is kind of small for my taste. I've made all the other ones bigger. And this bag would make a cool purse, just get a magnet or some other kind of clasp and use it to connect the long sides together.

 

My adventures with the 10 stitch blanket....

    As you know, I caved to peer pressure and started the 10 stitch blanket. I read so many posts about it on the facebook knitting group page. So many people were having trouble with it, I decided to give it a try. ( I never realized that knitters were so prone to peer pressure)


    I told you about all this yesterday. Well, I didn't have any problems with that first double corner. When I read about the people having trouble, I think to myself that they should do what I tell my good friend Bonny to do.... Just do what the pattern says. Don't overthink it.


    So my first adventure was deciding to find a circular needle to use instead of the bamboo double points. (which I should say, worked perfectly fine) I searched through all my needles and couldn't find a single size US 8. I finally found one is my unfinished stash, so I pulled whatever was in progress off that needle, and used it. Unfortunately, it was only 16" long. After a couple of rows, it was driving me nuts. It wasn't long enough. I wished I had found a 24". So I went back to the bamboo double points. They really do work best.


   Then I decided to search mystash for more Amazing. Now, I have seen at least a couple more balls while searching for other stuff in my stash. It should also be noted that there is no organization whatsoever of my stash. The best I can say is that most of it is contained in three of those giant Ziplock things, the ones with handles, that are the size to go under your bed. Unfortunately, none of them are actually zippered closed.


   But I kind of like it this way, it makes every stash dive an adventure, as I never know exactly what I will find! I love that kind of surprise. Anyway, it took a while, but I went through all three containers, and a few bags as well. I found two unused balls and one ball that was being used for a crocheted hand warmer thing. Evidently I didn't like it, or I would have finished it. With those in hand, I got out my ball winder, and began to frog the hand warmer.


    That was an adventure in itself! Amazing yarn is fuzzy, and like all fuzzy yarns, it does not like to be frogged. It sticks to itself horribly. I managed to get about 3/4 of the ball frogged and wound up neatly. At one point the yarn broke because I was pulling it so hard. That's when I quit. The rest of the yarn in the warmer just wasn't worth the aggravation. It's in the garbage. If I have to, I will buy a few new balls.


    So now to the TA-DA moment! Here is my progress so far, and I just took this photo before I sat down to write this.

    I went back to Ravelry, and downloaded the free pattern again. This time, I was logged in, so it was saved. I moved it into my documents on my laptop, and then was able to move it onto a USB memory stick. That is where I keep most of my patterns now. That way when I want a particular one, I can just print it out.


    I believe that yesterday I mentioned that I didn't read the pattern, I just watched a video on youtube and followed along. It was a great relief to read that I had done the corners correctly.


    The ladies of the facebook knitting group are right, this pattern *is* addicting! I am already picking out yarn for the next one.....

Yarn bomb planning and a visit to mom's

    I don't know what's wrong with me. For over 20 years, I have had the perfect canvas for a great yarn bomb right in my back yard! And it's only now, that we are fixing and upgrading, that it suddenly occurs to me. The chain link fence around our pool! I want to wait until the new fence is up, but that gives me plenty of time to make 2" wide strips. Some of my friends are even chipping in to help!


    I have one crocheted purple strip done, I'm estimating it's about 12 feet long. I am currently knitting a strip, and also have another crocheted strip in progress. All this, as well as working on a new knitted blanket for O.G.


    The blanket for O.G. sprang from that wrap project from a few posts ago... As I was knitting it, I thought if I put a garter stitch border on it, this would make a cool blanket, and after a while I couldn't resist the call any more. So the wrap is in a time out, along with all my other projects that I got bored with.


    This past week, I went to visit my mom. We had a lovely visit, but it's funny how these visits bring up childhood memories that you think you've forgotten. One of the strongest memories for me is once I was sick, in bed, and mom brought me a glass of apple juice. As I drank it, I got a mouthful of apple juice mixed with dish soap.


    Now, it was a very insignificant event, in general, yet it affects me to this day. Whenever I'm at mom's and take a glass out of the  cupboard, I habitually put the glass to my nose and sniff the inside. You know, to make sure it doesn't have any dish soap residue in it....


   It goes without saying that to this day, I will not drink apple juice either. But the most significant consequence of that little episode is that it's made me what I call a "Super Rinser". When I wash dishes, I rinse them so well, there couldn't possibly be any dish soap residue left in there to dry and mix with anything in the future, saving future generations from the trauma.

A Tale of Two Projects

    Do you remember that Hubs took me to the LYS the other day, and I bought some Malabrigo sock yarn? Maybe I forgot to tell you about it, but he did. I know! It surprised me too! Well, it's been sitting there, calling to me. Last night I broke out my swift and wound it up. Then I went through my pattern book shelf, and picked out this book: Nature's Wrapture, Contemporary Knitted Shawls, by Sheryl Thies.


    There is a pattern in there that I really loved. I even started to make it once upon a time. I recently found it, partly finished. I had needed the needle for something else, and put it on a large stitch holder. Nice, except I don't remember exactly WHICH size needle I was using.....

    This is the pattern called Sandy Beach. I really enjoyed working on it, it was fun. It seems a shame to just leave it there on the stitch holder. Then I had a thought! Since it's plenty long enough, I think I'll cast it off as it is, sew the ends together, and make it into what some people call a cowl. To me it isn't a cowl unless you can pull it up over your head and still have some around your neck. Either way, it'll be pretty.


    This morning, I cast on the same project again, in the new sock yarn. I've only been working on it a few hours, here at home and at Bonny's while I was visiting.

    It's so pretty! I love watching the colors change! The colorway is 870 Candombe, in Malabrigo sock yarn. If I want to make this longer, I may have to go back and see if there is any more of this colorway!
   

Something I forgot yesterday

    I totally forgot to mention something else yesterday. I got new glasses. To most people it's like "So what?" and I know that, but I thought they were the coolest things since sliced bread. See, they have no hinges at the temples! I've shown them to everyone I know and not one person was impressed. I was disappointed, to say the least...

    And as for knitting news, Spectra is off the needles! Yup, she's all done. I ended up not doing as many wedges as the pattern called for, I think I was one shy. I just wasn't convinced that I had enough of the black for one more wedge. At some point I will block her and take photos.

Catching up.... Again.....

   I just looked at the date of my last post, and I can't believe it's been two whole weeks since then. I've tried. Every few days I will log in and just sit here, and nothing comes out. So I log out.


    That's what happens when there's lots going on and I can't say anything about any of it. There are however, a few things going on that I *can* talk about. For instance, we are getting the pool redone. It happened suddenly, after Hubs told me that it's too much work getting it ready to swim in, this year being the most work ever. Things were leaking in the pump house that had never leaked before.


    Then we happened to run into his childhood best friend, they were raised together and are like brothers. He is a contractor, and he's doing pools now as well. He has agreed to do ours for us. Trust has a lot to do with it, and he trusts Gary. The best news for me, is I am finally getting steps in my pool!


   So far we have drained out as much water as we can, and picked out and ordered the bullnose blocks for the edge. Gary will come and measure for the new liner.


    On the knitting front, I am currently in the last few wedges of Spectra by Stephen West. I'm trying to gauge if I have enough black left to do another wedge as well as the end bit. It's going to be close.


    I love this pattern so much that I already have the yarn for two more all set up. Well, either that, or a sock yarn shawl. I can't decide which. One of them I was planning on using the solid color for the wedges and the variegated for the border. Just to switch things up a little. The photo below is actually from when I got to the 70th wedge.

    Hubs is back on his Harley riding. He had some issues with an exhaust system. He ordered a new one, and ended up cancelling that order, then ordering another one somewhere else. It finally came and one of the pipes didn't have a baffle in it. So he had to call, and they had to send him a baffle. Believe me, there was much more drama than I have implied here. Hubs was really upset because he missed the whole week of perfect riding weather. But here she is with her new pipes.

    Like I said there have been lots of things going on. I hope to keep you updated on the pool, with progress photos, as well as whatever knitting o crocheting I decide to do.

Promised Photo

    Here it is, the photo of my Spectra progress. I did another couple repeats last night!

    I can now easier see the color changes. I hope you can too!

Owen and knitting progress

    This morning, Owen was in his jumpy thing when I got there. About 20 minutes after Daddy left for work, I noticed that he was getting tired and not jumping as much. He would stop, and his head would start to fall forward, then he would open his eyes and start jumping again. He wouldn't give in. Eventually, though, he did give in. My question is this: Am I evil for taking photos *before* I took him out of it?

    The good news is that I was able to get him out of it, still asleep. He did start to jump again when I touched him to pick him up, but I shushed him and cuddled him, and he didn't wake up.


    As for kitting progress, there is some! I am currently finishing the 25th wedge (pattern repeat) . The color has changed again too. It turns out that the first color was a purplish pink, then came orange, now it's a bright pink.


    I don't have a new photo of my progress. I will take one tomorrow and post it. Promise.

A Color Change..... I think....

    I have knitted now, 12 or 13 of these pattern repeats. I do believe that today at Bonny's I noticed the color was finally changing. When I compare the current wedge to the first one, the newer one is definitely orange, while the original one is pink.

    I will have you know that I went outside to take this photo. I stood on my burning hot, rock slab stoop, burning the heck outta my poor feets. And the stupid thing keeps curling up. But I do believe you can see the color changing.


    If I make another one of these, I will definitely use a yarn that has shorter color sequences. This yarn is not very satisfying in that department. YET.


    I decided that in every tenth wedge I was going to place a marker, to aid in the counting. After all, I'm supposed to make 85 of these fracking wedges, and it's much easier to count by 10's. So that's the white thing you see in that one wedge. It's like a little plastic safety pin. I have white ones and black ones.

I'm Knitting!!

   That's right, I am temporarily out of my funk. When I was picking up the living room last week, I found a pattern that I had bought a couple of years ago, the last time we went to Rhinebeck. It has been calling to me to make it. I gave in today.


    It's Spectra by Stephen West. I am using black Malabrigo sock yarn and Painted Desert yarn, color way Eruption. I have 5 sections done so far, only 80 more to go!!

 
    The Painted Desert color way changes are really long, so I have to promise you another photo when you can actually see more than one color, although if you really look, you can see at the bottom of the photo it's a little more purple and at the top it's a little more pink. Either way, I will take more photos as the colors change.


    I would like to mention that the needle shown in the photo is one of the vintage nylon ones I got at the flea market slash craft fair. It really looks like it should glow in the dark, doesn't it? It doesn't. I tried it today while I was at Bonny's house. I was a bit disappointed.


    Those of you with keen eyes may have noticed that the wedge yarn is the same one as the Pi Shawl I've been working on for - like - ever. I bought an extra ball last time I was at Out of the Loop yarn shop, in case I needed more. I think all crocheters think that way, since crochet uses so much more yarn and we have learned to buy way more than we really need. Especially for knitting!

Catching up again

    It seems we have found the problem with my laptop. The power/charging cord was bad. Hubs and I went to Best Buy and got a new one, and so far it seems all better! There is only one little problem left. This blog site isn't recognizing the browser I'm using. That makes no sense to me, as I use Google as my browser, and Google owns the blogsite. As long as I can continue to post, it matters not to me.


   I did get to go visit with mom yesterday, at least for a while. Hubs had to go to the house in Fishkill to look at, and hopefully fix, a couple of problems they've been having. He dropped me off at mom's so we could visit. We had a nice time. Unfortunately, it wasn't as long of a visit as I thought it would be. It turns out that everything was OK at the house, at least for now.


    I recently purchased a new nook HD+. It's the big one. I love it so far. I love the touch screen, and I made it so that when I'm reading and turn the page, when I swipe the screen it looks like an actual page is turning. It really is the little things that make me happy.


    Since my laptop is back up, I've been busy transferring photos from there to my nook. I can use them for wallpaper! I need to get some photos of Chloe, Mason and Owen from far away, because of the scale thing. I put a close up of Owen as a wallpaper, and all I got was an eye, a nose, and part of his smile. It was scary looking.


   My days last week babysitting for Owen were lots of fun. He is such a joyful little boy. And at 5 months old, he loves it when you hold him up and he stands on our legs. He can actually support his weight, we just hold him for balance. He might be an early walker. I'm not sure if I should be happy for Sara and Mike, or sorry for them!


    Here is the latest photo of Owen, having tummy time.

    I am shamelessly adding the photo of Owen because it seems when I post photos of the grandkids, I get many more views!


    I was knitting on the legwarmers, but the new nook took my attention away from them. I do take them with me when I go to watch Owen. I hope to get some work done while he naps. Keep your fingers crossed, I might take a photo of them if there's any visible progress...

It's been a while....

    I know, and I'm sorry it's been so long since I last posted. I had my laptop crash. Then after we sort of got it back, it wouldn't connect to anything. I think I finally got most things working again, except for some reason I couldn't log into my blog.


    Today I finally got through, but I'm still not sure if what I write will actually post. How can a blog site, owned by google, not recognize google as the search engine I'm using? It confounds me. But I shall keep writing and hope it posts.


    I've been working like a mad woman these past few days, getting more rings and yarn for my cat toys, as well as gathering more supplies of other kinds. For instance Hubs gave me some small S hooks he found in the garage, new in the package. I can use them to hang my cat toys in the wire cubes we are using. I also purchased some paper lunch bags for those toys that are purchased.


    I have also been busy making more cat toys, as well as re-tagging the ones that I had previously tagged. So now, all the toys are tagged with the new business cards, and the measurement on the back. This evening I made four more toys. As you may be able to tell, I bought more yarn today, and my good friend Bonny gave me some of hers too.


    Now my hands are tired, and so am I. Hubs has gone to bed already, as he has to work tomorrow. Before I sign off, I wanted to tell you that I've taken the legwarmers out of their time out. It felt good to work on them today while I was at Bonny's.

Back to real business

    Since the felting fiasco, I've gone back to working on my previous projects, specifically the Pi Shawl and the double knit pad thing for Owen. It was hard going back to the shawl, with its sock weight yarn. I'd been using two strands of worsted weight for so long, my hands hurt from the much smaller knitting movements required for the Pi Shawl.


    I've only done a couple of rows on the double knit pad for Owen, but I did find the two color sample I had made of regular double knitting. One side is one color, and the other side is a different, contrasting color. You can make a design on both sides simply by using the second color to knit the first color's stitch, and vice versa. Here are photos of my sample:

    And there you have it. It is harder to do, because you are holding both colors at the same time. But once you get the hang of it, it's not really that bad.


   Lastly, I have a new photo of the Pi Shawl progress. Again, it doesn't look like much, and you'll see it better when it's all done and stretched out.

    As it gets bigger, the stripes of color get thinner. And that's all I have for today.

I will not felt anything ever again....

   You see the photos, you see the pattern and think "Yeah, I can do this, it's not that hard!". Well, at least for me, it never turns out the way it's supposed to. After 11 skeins of wool that were not on sale, after putting all other projects in a time out, and after knitting like a mad woman for days on end, it's finally over.


   The giant purple bag came off the needles, and I took this photo:

    Then I folded it up and put it on the shelf. I wasn't going to felt it right away. I would rather felt it when Hubs isn't home, because he complains that I'm using the hot water and therefore using our oil unnecessarily.


    Well..... I couldn't wait. Last night I put it in the washer with a pair of youngest son's old denim shorts and three tennis balls that I have expressly for the purpose of felting. I had to run them through twice. This morning, I threw the whole mess into the dryer and hoped for the best. This is what I pulled out of the dryer about an hour ago...

    I put the yardstick in so we could all have a reference point to the original photo. It shrunk too much up and down, and not enough side to side. I am unhappy. I stuffed it with a couple of sheet sets so it had some dimension:

    I am seriously considering cutting a few inches out of the middle to make it shorter. I shall have to think on this for a while. In the meantime I think it's going in a time out of it's own....

Purple Bag Photos!

    I really can't believe how huge this bag really is! I had to take photos so I wouldn't forget after it's felted.

    So right now it's about 30 inches wide and 27 inches tall. I've got two more rounds until I can bind off. Then I just have to finish the tabs that hold the rings for the handle. I don't have enough yarn. I'll have to buy one more skein. That sucks! There is more yarn in this stupid bag than in most sweaters!!

An all projects update

   I am still knitting like a mad woman here. Unfortunately, every other project is in a time out. The Pi Shawl, the double knit pad for Owen, the legwarmers (remember them?), I'm sure there are more but I just can't recall right now. They are all in sleep mode and someday I will get back to them.


   Of course, in the meantime, I'm still working on the Huge Adventure Bag. This thing is taking on a life of its own. I am currently almost to the ends of skeins 7 and 8, with 9 and 10 ready to go. I still have 25 more rounds to go until I increase on the short sides for the handle attachment flaps. I would take a photo, but I really don't think it would make much sense to the eye. It would just look  like a giant mound of double stranded, purple stockinette, with four stitch markers  indicating the corners. 


    I'm still plugging away on the 36 inch circular needle. I did find a set of double pointed needles in the size needed, at Out Of The Loop, one of my favorite LYS's. I feel I should mention that Hubs actually volunteered to take me there! We were in Fishkill making a Sam's run, and he mentioned it, so off we went. While we were there, I decided to buy another skein of the yarn I'm using for the Pi Shawl, since I was concerned I would run out before I finished. Now I can make sure it's big enough to suit me.


    I may very well be out of touch for the next few days, as it's my turn to babysit little Owen tomorrow and Friday. I am out of touch with the internet while performing that task. I need to concentrate on the little guy. He's growing so fast! He's become so much more vocal, trying out his little voice! I have so much fun with him....

A quick update

   I've been knitting like a woman possessed, and I've made real progress on the giant purple bag. It's gotten too large for my biggest project bag! I've transferred it to my biggest purse, the Metro Bag from Thirty One. I have it in maroon. That way I only have to carry one bag.

    According to the pattern, I'm about 1/3 of the way up the body of the bag! Yikes! I'm gonna need more yarn.....


    It made me sad, but I only got to use the inside half of that skein my good friend donated for me to use. Unfortunately, I had to throw the rest of it away, with her blessing. Hopefully I will get some more yarn today while I'm out with daughter and grandbaby, visiting my mom!

A Crafting Rant and Two P.S.'s

    You know how, in a movie or a TV show, they (attempt to) show someone either knitting or crocheting, and they get to SOOOO wrong? Like someone in a commercial who is knitting on a obviously crocheted afghan? Or when they show someone actively crocheting on a granny square afghan? WRONG!! Can you tell it makes me crazy?


    My most fervent wish would be for me to be the one that the movie/TV industry hires to make sure they get it right. A "Crafting Consultant" of sorts. I am pretty sure that I'm not the only crafter that is annoyed by these unnecessary oversights. I can't begin to tell you how many movies and TV shows this has ruined for me.


    Another one that bugs me is when they show someone sitting down to knit, and when they pick up their knitting, they are in the middle of a row! I know of absolutely no knitter, ever, who would stop in the middle of a row. Unless she could get back to it right away. I think it's a very deeply ingrained knitting behavior, we just can't stop until the current row is completed.  Crocheters, on the other hand, have no compunction about stopping whenever, or wherever, they want.


    OK, I think this rant is over. I feel better already. Thanks for listening! If anyone has any thoughts, please feel free to leave a comment.


    P.S.  I would like to thank my high school typing teacher, Mr. Knickerbocker, the bow tie wearer. He was wearing them before they were cool (Doctor Who reference).   I failed his class. If only he could see me now! I hardly ever have to look at the keys any more....


    P.P.S.  I've had this laptop nearly three years now, and to my total surprise, the N key is the one that is most worn.  All the other keys still look like new! This is just one of those random things that occur to me on a daily basis.