We’re off up to Maine today for the blessings of the holy hairdresser :) I’m trying to decide whether to continue letting my mop grow out and Myria is trying to figure out if 6 inches or so off her waist-length hair mightn’t give it a little more bounce.  Such crucial decisions, eh?  Heheh....

I started this kid-sized sock last night:

Then I got bored with it and started this kid-sized hat:





I think I want to work some other color(s) into this one somewhere.  Then, after farting with every circular knitting method known to humanity to get comfortable with this thing, I gave it up too - not forever, just for last night.  I was getting in trouble with everything I picked up - a sure sign that I should be doing something else for a while :)

I did finish the peppermint sock, evening-before-last, with about 6” of yarn to spare.  No big deal, since I was working from the toes-up, but it pleased me not to be wasting yarn.

I’ll probably get the second sock under way before long.  I’d like to have these for my trip and given how long it seems to take me to make a standard sock, I should probably get cracking!  Not to mention the gorgeous blue merino sock yarn I’ve got waiting in the wings.  Oooh, yummy!

The weekend seemed to be primarily sock oriented :) First, there were these, children’s socks:

This is another pattern from Woolworks and you can find it here.  It is actually a very basic pattern which uses worsted weight yarn and size 6 (US) needles.  It works up very quickly - even a pokey knitter like me can turn out one a day :)

This is the first time I’ve ever played with using more than one color for a sock and I must say it wasn’t nearly as annoying as I thought it would be.  And it worked out nicely, I think.  There will definitely be more of these!  Oh yeah, that little bow on the cuff?  That’s just a double length of yarn threaded through both socks and back (with the help of a tapestry needle) and then tied in a bow to keep the pair together in transit.

Then there’s this:

There’s only another inch or so to go on this.  I tried it on last night and it fit beautifully (yay!) and I can’t wait to get it finished so I can start on the mate.  I hope these wear well because they are already my favorite socks and I’m going to wear them to death :)

The cats were unusually companionable this morning - perhaps in honor of the day?

Of course as soon as they spied the camera, they decided they had business elsewhere :)

We have gotten our cable back for the time being and we watched Food Network’s “Iron Chef America” last night.  What an odd show - though it can’t hold a candle to the original Japanese production.  Chocolate and coconut as entrée ingredients?  Well, maybe....but I think our Sunday dinner of roast pork, fresh asparagus (often referred to in our house as “asper-grass") and bow-tie pasta beats anything the chefs prepared.  Myria’s cooking just gets better and better :) I do enjoy Alton Brown though; he’s such an amiable geek.  His own show, “Good Eats” is all about the chemistry and physics of cooking and is very entertaining.  I’ve also learned some good techniques from him.

I hope you all had great and wonderful weekends and that your upcoming week is pleasant.

Okay, here’s the shawl - so far :)

I put half the stitches on another needle to take the pictures but even then I couldn’t stretch it out to its full width.  I suspect that it’s at least as wide as the bed is long.

I worked on this at least 6 hours yesterday but it doesn’t seem as though I have all that much to show for it.  I know better than that though because I went through a ball of yarn and started another.

Of course, now I’m wondering where I’m going to find the room to block the darned thing!

Have a great weekend!

I finished the hood/mantle last night and am quite pleased with how it came out.  I don’t usually bother with a pattern that doesn’t have a picture attached, but this sounded really neat and so I decided to give it a try anyway.  As it turns out, the pattern was quite well written and the hood is easy-as-pie to make.  The pattern is here.  It states that the hood takes 8 oz of worsted weight yarn.  I found a 100 gram ball of Encore did the trick nicely :)

When I make this again (and I probably will try a couple more), I’m going to try doing it in the round and eliminating the front seam.  I did away with the top seam by just knitting half the row and then folding the hood (right sides together) and doing a three-needle bind-off.

I was surprised at how long this took me - I know, I keep saying this :) - but I am a really pokey knitter.  I don’t worry about it much as I don’t knit to set speed records, but it is true.  I had the mantle and ribbing parts done when I sat down last night and picked this up at about 6:00 PM but it still took until almost midnight for me to finish it - including weaving the ends. 

But I thinks it’s pretty cool!  Hopefully it will also be pretty warm :)

I also learned that I’m not fond of working with dark yarn.  It’s tough to see and, my god, the cat hair! I realize that everything I make is probably imbued with cat hair but it never showed up as well as it does on the dark red hood.  Extra insulation, maybe?

I did a tiny bit on the sock last night too - started the 2x2 rib for the top and hopefully that will be completed soon so I can get the mate started.  Now I want to focus on the shawl and get that into shape.  Well, the shape’s already established but you know what I mean.

Jade and Goldie have been being rocket-kitties that last few days.  Boogety, boogety - all over the apartment - and there’s definitely more play than hostility involved.  Goldie will be sleeping somewhere - on the cat tower, the bed or the back of Myria’s chair - and Jade will dash up, take a couple of whacks at him and dash off again.  Tag!  You’re it! And, of course, Goldie will take off after her like a furry, golden jet.  It’s very amusing to watch.

Goldie is just around the corner and she’s waiting for him to poke his nose out :)

I hope to have shawl progress to tell you about tomorrow.  Have a good Thursday!

Firstly, thank you all for your good wishes.  When you feel like crud, it’s nice to know there are people out there hoping you feel better.  The fever was done with me by late Sunday but the headache just hung on and on until yesterday when it finally seemed to loosen its talons a bit.

So I worked on this yesterday afternoon and evening:

This is a kind of pull on hood with a lower bit that goes out over the shoulders and down the back and chest a little.  The pattern is for two-needle construction but once I’ve gotten it done, I may be able to figure out how to do it in the round.  It’s supposed to be for a child - I don’t really have a good idea of size yet - but I’m guessing a small child.  I hope to finish it up tonight and I’m hoping to talk Goldie into modeling it for me.  Yeah, that’ll work :)

I’ve also got to try and think of some way to dress it up a tad, or spark it up or something.  It’s a child size but it’s an adult color - muted, dark and sensible.  Definitely got to do something about that :)

The amaryllis in the kitchen popped a third blossom this week and there’s a fourth yet to come.

A nice thing to have in the middle of winter.  We’ve got one “sleeping” in the refrigerator too that we should take out and “wake up” before too much longer :)

I’ve been dealing with a nasty bug since Friday - fever and monster headaches - so there’s been no knitting.  Sleeping, reading, watching some very silly TV, but no knitting.

I’ll be back on Wednesday with, hopefully, something to report.

Hope your weekends were wonderful!

The only real knitting I got done yesterday was on the Snowdrop, which I am pleased to report, is approximately 60” across the top.  I now know that I’ve got more than enough yarn to go on with this for a while yet so I believe that I’m going to go for about 80”.  I realize this probably sounds gargantuan and huge, but then I am a very long ways from little and petite.  80 inches will give me enough width and depth (I hope and believe) to balance my bulk.  I’ve got 17 snowdrops across.  Since I’ve decided not to do the stockinette triangle and will proceed straight through with the lace pattern, I’m guessing that 27 snowdrops will give me, roughly, the width I want.

Of course, by that time, I’ll be setting an evening aside to knit a single row.  As it is a row and its return (I know this is 2 rows but I think of them as a single unit in a way.  You start on the right side and work all the way around to get to the starting point again) is taking me a half hour - not that I’m any speed demon knitter :) We watched Dr. Dolittle last night - the new one.  (While I can’t help but feel that Rex Harrison was probably quite a bit more like the Dolittle Lofting had in mind, the charcaterizations of the animals in the more recent film are hilarious and entertaining).  Anyway, by the end of the film, 2 hours time, I had completed 8 rows.  I know as the shawl gets wider each row takes longer to do - but I find this a bit disheartening.  Oh well, nothing to do for it but to do it!

The alpaca mitts and I grumbled at each other this morning.  I will be taking them apart and restarting.  I should have known better than to put this lovely, silky yarn on metal needles so we will begin again on wooden pins which should have the friction to keep the stitches from sliding around.  I’ll also be using needles a size bigger and knitting with more tension rather than keeping things loose.  That should improve the situation somewhat :)

I’ll also pass along some links I found last night for what look like useful items for the Dulaan project…

A child’s hood and mantle.  I’ll probably try this one next.

Children’s mittens and socks

...all courtesy of Wool Works.

And this link, passed on by barbara-in-east-texas, for a type of vest, or body warmer, appropriately fiddled for size, also looks promising.

Have a great weekend folks and knit on :)