Searching for a Pattern and Other Stuff

    Since yesterday, I have been searching for a pattern to knit. I have looked through most of my pattern books, magazines, and patterns I've gotten from free pattern sites, mostly Knitting Pattern Central.


    I've even looked at crochet patterns. Nothing is speaking to me. In the meantime, I will continue working on the shawl. But it's getting  b  o  r  i  n  g. Which could be why I put it down in the first place.


    This morning, when I went to sit for the Cherub, I took my camera and completed Arachno Shawl. She had agreed to model it for me, so I could show you a good photo of what it looks like. This is what I got:

    Apparently, she decided she wasn't into it this morning. I will try to find another model, or maybe just lay it out on the hood of my Jeep. It's really not big enough to suit me, I think if I want to make it "Kim" big, I would have to double the amount of cast on stitches. I'm thinking that doing the cobweb pattern for the border on that many stitches would drive me over the edge.


     So Hubs is finally asleep, I think, after having to work a 5th 12 hour shift in a row. To say he wasn't happy is an understatement. But it's over now, and I get to be with him for two nights before he goes back for his three night week.

 
    And tomorrow is new tattoo day!! Finally!!

On the needles now...

    Since I finished the Arachno Shawl, I haven't knit a single stitch. I packed up the WIP Wingspan shawl to take to babysitting today, but the little darling wouldn't nap until just before her daddy came.


    So I sit here, watching TV, having just sent Hubs off to work. I need to get dressed and make a grocery store run, since we are very nearly out of half and half. That is a very bad thing. It's just too fracking hot outside today to even consider it. And in my little area of the country, we are under a Bad Air Advisory, or whatever it is that it's called. People like me, who have lung and breathing issues are advised not to go out, or at least not to do strenuous activity.


    Of course, I shall go out and get what I need anyway, like I always do. I am such a good little wifey. I happen to be out of my fruit popsicles anyway, so I can get more while I'm there. I love the Pomegranate, and Pineapple ones. They are my two favorites. I'm hoping they are on sale, so I can buy more of them. Believe me, they won't go to waste!


    After I get home from the store, I shall, very probably, partake of a fruit popsicle, and then break out my knitting. But there are dishes waiting to be washed, so it may take all my concentration to ignore them...

And Now For Your Scheduled Rant.....

    As I hoped, knitting this afternoon refreshed my memory. Now it's all clear again what I was going to rant about.


    I like very few "reality" shows, and most of the ones I do like are cooking shows. I catch House Hunters and House Hunters International whenever I can. It's these shows about which I am ranting today.


    Not the shows themselves, but the people on the shows. Sometimes they are idiots, or completely insane. My favorite idiots? There was a couple whose only child was going away to college in another state. They decided to sell their big house, and move to the same town where he was going to school. Fine. The both stated that they wanted to downsize their house. Fine.  They did want a bedroom for the son, so he could visit on the weekends. Fine.


    Every stinking house they looked at, the wife had one thing to say: "It's too small!" or "The rooms are too small"!! I almost screamed myself hoarse that night, yelling at the TV. "THAT'S WHAT DOWNSIZING MEANS, YOU STUPID BITCH!!"


    The house they bought had more square feet than the house they left. So much for downsizing. Since our son moved out, I ask my Hubs once in a while, "Can we downsize to a bigger house now?"


    What really drives me crazy are these people who expect to get all high end appliances and things on a small budget. People who want granite counter tops, and stainless appliances already installed when they buy a house. They need to get fracking real. To me, those things are done later, when you can afford to do them!


    And some of the buyers are checking for the most inane things before they will even consider buying the house! One couple needed the house number to add up to anything other than a certain number. I don't remember what the number was. In another couple, the husband insisted the house face a certain direction, so his back yard barbecues would have a good view of the sunset.



    One husband went around tasting the water at every house they saw! How insane is that? Sometimes these people just need to be bitch slapped. On reflections, my Hubs and I might have seemed a bit odd when we were house hunting... Where we were living at the time, we had really lousy water pressure. So every house we looked at, we would check the water pressure. It seems you look for what is important to you at the time, no matter how insane it appears to outsiders.


    The people of the International show are in a class by themselves.... I just shake my head at most of them. Some are spoiled Americans, coming from their waaaay to big houses, and they are looking for the same thing in a new country, However, most of the other countries in the world have houses that are far older than the U.S. sometimes!And these really old houses are not going to have big rooms, or modern layouts! These people I really, really want to slap. Here they have a chance to live in Italy, or Brazil, or Spain, and live in a really old and historic house, and all they want is an "open concept" house! AARRGGHH!


    OK, I am feeling a bit better now that the rant is out of the way. Thanks for listening. If you agree with me, or even if you don't, please feel free to comment!


   As far as knitting goes, I finished the Arachno Shawl today!! YAY!! I will photograph it after it gets laundered.


   

Shawl Progress and Skull Making

    This morning I didn't really feel like knitting, so I went into the patterns for skulls that I found on the internet. I picked one out, a neat one designed by Sandi Marshall. I got out my hook, and started crocheting.


    On the first attempt, I got as far as round three, with no problems. When I started doing round four, the grinning teeth part was being placed next to the first eye, not under the nose. So I frogged it, back to the beginning of row four, and attempted it again. Going slower, and reading more carefully this time.


   Nope, the teeth were still lining up with the first eye. I frogged it again, read the pattern again, and decided just to wing it myself. Here is what it looks like:

    I may have another go at it, I'm not entirely happy with the teeth area. And, ad you can see, I changed my mind about the color, I think black would look better than light gray on the dark gray shawl body.


    When I was babysitting for Miss Malia today, I got quite a bit of work done on the shawl while she napped. I think I did about 6 rows! Then I stopped to take some photos. Here is a photo of how it looks now:

    And here it is with the skull in place:

    The shawl is getting small enough that I could put it on a shorter length needle, but I can't find one. They must all have WIPs on them. Working on a 60" needle is getting  

crazy! It's getting tangled up in itself!  Oh, well, I shall just have to persevere.

A Knitters Work is Never Done

    Today, as Miss Malia slept,  I worked on my shawl. I did about three rows before she woke up, the first time. I got two more rows done before she woke up for good.  I got to knit one more row while she was avidly watching her favorite show.


    There really isn't much else to talk about today. I also got to knit with Kim while Cherub was in karate class. Perhaps I shall get to work on it some more this evening.


    I cooked chicken breasts for dinner, seasoned with Hubs' favorite, Montreal Steak. I use it on everything, from steaks to pork, to chicken. I haven't tried it on fish yet, I am the only one in the house who would eat fish, so I don't even cook it.


    Now we are watching a time travel karate movie, a kid goes back in time to save the Monkey King. The movie was my choice, there isn't much on tonight. I'm hoping Hubs will want to watch the new DVD that came today, the newest in the Underworld series.

Arachno Shawl Update PHOTOS!

   I finally broke down and took the promised photos. I think they came out pretty good, let me know what you think!

   At first I wasn't sure about the dark gray, I didn't think there was enough differentiation between the colors. But as it progresses, I'm thinking it'll be okay. I am even toying with the idea of crocheting a light gray skull and sewing it near the bottom of the body, after it's all done. We will just have to wait and see how I feel about it when I'm actually done.

    I still have the stitch marker on the center stitch, after a couple more rows, I will take it out.

    I thought this shot really shows off how the cobweb looks after the stitches are dropped. When I laid it out on the carpet, I realized that yeah, it's going to be plenty big enough.


    As I unraveled the stitches, I was very glad that I used a size 10 needle to cast on. I don't know how to do the long tail cast on, and don't want to learn. It seems way too complicated. So I thought that maybe using a bigger needle to cast on would make the edge be able to stretch enough. It looks like I was correct. It's nice to be right once in a while. I should mention that I worked the rest of the shawl on a size 8 needle. If you have been reading me for a while, you know that I only use circular needles.


    P.S. If "differentiation" is spelled wrong, I apologise, it seems my spell check isn't working. I wrote a sentence with every word spelled wrong, and it didn't flag one word. Both of my parents were teachers, and spelling is kind of an obsession for me.  My dad taught High School Math, and my mom was a Pre-School teacher.

Arachno Shawl Update

Saturday Night:

    Here it is, Saturday night. I finally got through the cobweb border, I did eight pattern repeats. I am now almost finished with the transition ribbing rows, just one row left. In between the rows, I'm unraveling the dropped stitches. This one is going a lot faster than the wool one. Maybe because I am using acrylic this time, Simply Soft.


    I really wanted a shawl I could just throw in the washer and dryer, and not have to worry about blocking it. I am probably the worlds worst blocker, I haven't blocked anything since my brown Lena sweater over a year ago. I simply don't have any good space in which to lay out my wooly goodness. Although I am mentally preparing myself to try the empty bedroom, someday to be my craft room. There's no air conditioning in there, and lots of floor space. I have those blocking foam pad things, and tons of old blankets.


    I think I'm giving up for tonight, I'm getting sleepy.


Sunday:

    Before I went to bed, I decided to finish the transition ribbing rows, and do the first row of the second color. I also unraveled about 1/3 of the dropped stitches.


    After I got up this morning and got a cuppa coffee in me, I unraveled some more, and at this time, I have done a few more rows of the shawl body. I plan on taking some photos later on today, if the sun ever comes out. I got woken up at 6 a.m. We shall just have to wait and see.

Knitting Update / What I Had For Dinner

    Ok. So the freaking cobweb border is coming along. I knitted through the storm, I knitted through a wicked dizzy spell, but only managed one single row. Last night, I knitted through Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I am currently into the 7th pattern repeat. I feel at this point like it will never end.


    The good news is that I had a rare flash of brilliance last night. I was putting together one of my favorite giant salads. I was bemoaning the fact that I had no left over meat to add to it, and I still haven't managed to remember to buy more frozen peas. I did add the last of that great Taboule salad into the mix. Then I remembered the huge bag of cooked shrimp in the freezer. I opened it, took out half a dozen or so, and thawed them in the microwave.


   Then I cut them into three pieces each, and voila! I had my meat for my giant salad. Then I remembered the pineapple spears I bought the other day, and made my good salad even better! This time I used Ken's Sweet Vidalia Onion Dressing on it.


    I was so hungry, I didn't even take a photo of this one. I just ate it all up.

As I knitted through The Storm...

    Well, the worst is over, Storm wise. It seems that we here in Hyde Park dodged a bullet. I am sure that other parts of town had some severe lightning and wind, but my little part of town didn't even have a blip in our electric or cable service. It didn't even get that windy!


    My Hubs called from work, in Fishkill, about 25 miles or so to the south, and they got hit with the storm pretty badly. It was very windy, but not too many trees came down. They were very, very lucky. He told me that he'd never ever seen so many lightning bolts in the sky.


    And here I sat, in my living room, knitting away like a fiend. I'm finding it takes an ungodly amount of time to knit just one row! So I only got to do maybe three rows! But progress is progress. I haven't even bothered to take any photos, as there's really nothing to see yet! However, as soon as I reach the part where I get to unravel stitches, I will take more photos. I promise.

In Which I Get To Knit Again!

    In the last few days, you may have noticed that I haven't blogged about my knitting project. Several days ago, I was really, really tired, and tried to work on my Arachno Shawl, hoping it would keep me awake. On my way back across the row, I came upon a mistake I had made in the previous row. I tried to fix it, but wasn't able to. I think it was because I was so very tired.


    I did manage to make my way across the rest of the row. Then I put it down. I figured when and if I saw my friend Kim, and if I felt she was receptive, I would ask her to see if she could figure out what I had done.


    Well, last night at karate I was able to show it to her. It took me a while to find the error, but I eventually did. She told me to work across the row until I got to it, and she would see what she could do. I was so excited! She fixed it for me! Somehow I had managed, in my delirium, to knit two stitches together. Somehow.


    I usually don't ask Kim to fix my mistakes. I try very hard to fix them myself. And so far, I have been pretty successful! It's nice to know that when I am beyond my depth, Kim is there to help me out.


    So now I can knit again! I am so happy! I have finished four repeats of the cobweb pattern. Only four more to go! If I have enough yarn, I may go for a fifth repeat. We shall just have to see.


 

And the winner is... Plan D!

   Well, none of the plans, A thru C, worked out. So I went with plan D. To knit the Arachno Shawl by Jennifer Dassau, in acrylic worsted weight. I did do the largest stitch count one, 301 cast on stitches. You know me, I like 'em big.

    In my stash dive, I found  several skeins of Caron's Simply Soft, in light gray. I also found one in black, and one white. The other day, I went to Hobby Lobby and purchased four skeins in dark gray. So my plan is to do the cobweb border in the black, then switch to the dark gray. If I want to, I can go to the light gray and even to white. But I'm thinking I'll be sticking with the black and dark gray.

    The fact that it's acrylic makes it machine washable, and no blocking. I am possibly the worlds most reluctant blocker. I haven't blocked anything since my Lena Sweater, over a year ago. The wool sweaters I made before that, my friend Kim blocked for me.  I simply don't have the patience.


    The best thing about using the worsted weight is that the stitches are nice and big, therefore visible! I don't need a microscope to see them! So far, I have completed just over two pattern repeats. It's coming along, and I am pleased. And there's nothing better than a pleased knitter!

Change of Plans Due to Epic Fail

    Well, I tried. I really did. I cast on all those 301 stitches, really loosely so it wouldn't be too tight when it was done. I was about halfway through the second row when I realized I was beyond my skill level. So right in the middle of the row,  > gasp < , I put it down.


    You see, it's kind of dark in my house. I figure if only I could knit outside, where it's nice and bright, I might be able to do this project as planned. The dark makes it very hard to see the black yarn stitches, and the fact that the stitches are so small doesn't help matters.


    After thinking about it the rest of the evening, and then again this morning, I have decided on an alternate plan. First, I will wind up the (possibly) Tip it Ewe Lush, and try that for the cob web border. It might be easier to see, and the black can still be used for the body, as it's all stockinette with decreases.
   
    If that doesn't pan out, I do have a plan C. I will forget about the black all together, and use some beautiful natural that I have somewhere, in one of my stashes. I am pretty sure I have more than 1000 yards of it, so it will do.


    A wiser knitter than myself pointed out to me that it was brave to try and use black for this project, it turns out I wasn't brave, but foolish. I remember when I bought it, I was planning on making black socks. I doubt that will ever get done either. I will probably crochet something with it, if this plan B doesn't work out.


   The stitches are still sitting there, glaring at me on the needles. I can't bring myself to frog them yet.