...at least between 8:00 PM and midnight on Thursday nights :)

Drop in and say “hello”!  Tell me what you’re knitting for Christmas :)

I went out yesterday, hoping to find yarn, among other things.  I didn’t think I was searching for anything in particular but several skeins of Cascade 220 wouldn’t have gone amiss :) Unfortunately it just wasn’t meant to be.  The Mill shop was out of every color but grey and denim blue and my little Country Shop has either retired or just plain gone out of business.  That left the Downtown shop which I really don’t care for so I gave it up as a bad job.

Also, I had seriously hoped to have gotten the sweater done past the sleeve holes, but you know about the life getting in the way thing :) I would like to get to wear the thing this winter at least once!  With luck, I may have something to show on Friday.  I’m beginning to suspect I bought way more yarn than I’m going to need to complete the garment - I mean like I could make Myria a matching cardigan kind of “more”.  LOL!  Still, I guess that’s not necessarily a bad thing, eh?  By the time I’m finished with this, I’ll have a rough idea of how much yarn I really do need for a basic pullover for myself and that’s useful information to have.  If there’s really tons of yarn leftover, I can always make a shawl, hat and mitts to go with it :)

Just so you know I don’t always suffer from second sock/mitt syndrome…

These will fit a six-year-old or so :)

In addition, there is a slightly funky but gorgeously colored skinny scarf…

It’s pretty slim, but will work for a child and is as thick and soft as can be.  The yarns were a gift so I don’t know anything about them except they’re super bulky and are wool so this ought to be warm as well as comfortable.

Amongst all yesterday’s running around, I decided to treat myself to this:

Initially I was concerned that this book would contain an overabundance of cell phone covers and it does have a pattern for that, but it had quite a lot of other nifty patterns as well running the gamut from simple hats to silk shawls.  There are a lot of useful projects and I expect to be using this book often.  One caveat - the projects can all be done with one skein of the yarn recommended for the pattern - but almost none of those skeins (hanks, balls) are your standard 50 grams and 100 meters.  Still, yarn quantities are clear enough for reasonable substitutions to be made easily and the patterns are organized by yarn weight so that if you already have a ball of worsted, you can go right to that chapter and look for something that floats your boat :) Ditto for bulky, heavy worsted, worsted-mohair (that one kind of puzzles me), sport, fingering and novelty.  There are some beautiful shawls and scarves as well as an assortment of very fun hats!





Of course, Jade couldn’t care less :)

Good morning everyone - I hope you all enjoyed the long weekend, those of you in the States anyways.  I would love to tell you about all the wonderful knitting I got done over the last four days - alas, I would be fibbing my socks off :)

However, speaking of socks…

I wanted to play with seed stitch as a ribbing element and I think this short cuffed sock works nicely.  No doubt the concept would work even more nicely with sock yarn and teeny needles, but for now I’m pleased with this.  I usually make Dulaan socks on size 4 (3.5mm) or 5 (3.75mm) needles with worsted weight yarn (for a thicker and, hopefully warmer sock) and this makes a nice testing ground for new ideas.  Also, if what ever notion has sunken it’s great, hairy claws into my imagination doesn’t work out, well, not much time has been lost nor is there a great deal to frog :)

This was worked over a cast-on of 35 stitches (worsted weight yarn, size 5 needles) in a pattern of 5 seed, 3 purl to a length of about two inches.  Increase one stitch before starting heel flap.  Heel flap is worked in heel stitch over 16 stitches and once the gussets have been reduced down, the foot is worked over 18 rounds before starting the decreases for a standard wedge toe.  The whole sock takes maybe a couple of hours.

Autumn Seeds is still moving along.  I’ve gotten to the point where separating the sleeve stitches is getting close.  However, I’m not there just yet and at last count, the circumference of the sweater was 304 stitches.  Currently it’s taking me an hour to do the two-round increase pattern.  I did work on the sweater exclusively last night for two solid hours and got all of four rounds done :).  But, if I’ve calculated things correctly, I only need to do another 12 rounds.  At that point, I’ll separate the sleeve stitches and just go on with the body stitches which should result in quicker apparent progress.  I still haven’t decided what to do at the bottom of the body - I don’t really want ribbing - or anything which would pull in.  I have no waist to note and would prefer not to draw attention to my hips.  I’m considering a tunic-like bottom where the sides are split for about 4 inches and where the edges and bottom are done in seed stitch to echo the seed stitch panels of the body and sleeves.

We’re gearing up for the next holiday, lights went up yesterday afternoon!

The picture bites, I know, but I wanted to share the lights and colors, they’re so pretty and cheerful :) It seems a silly thing to derive so much pleasure from.  Myria told me yesterday, that we could do more windows than the one in the kitchen.  That’s true, but because of the peculiarities of where our building is located and what’s around it, this is really the only window we can share with the outside world, and I don’t think of this lighting thing as being solely for our benefit.  Besides, one is enough and I suspect doing every window in the place would make it feel less special :)

I happened upon a moment of détente in the kitchen this morning.  I don’t know what caused it and don’t imagine it lasted much longer than the time it took to take the picture…

Peace on Earth, good will to felines!  Ho, ho, humph.....

Note: There seems to have been some problem with the commenting system.  It should be fine now.  We’re continuing to look at things and monitor the situation.  If you try to leave a comment and have a problem, please drop me a line and include whatever error message you get.  That will help me track down what’s causing the problem.  Thanks :)

Back to your regularly scheduled blather....

I was absolutely geared up and ready to get seriously cracking on the pink stole but felt that I really needed to put in some more time on the Autumn Seeds sweater.  So I dutifully picked it up and have been working on that.  Come to discover yesterday, I was going to need the super-long circular needle I was using for the stole because the sweater increases had dwarfed the capacity of the needle it was on.  Sigh....

So I carefully transferred the whole three rows of the stole to another needle to be held until I get past the armscyes of the sweater - which, needle juggling aside, is coming along nicely :)

I am enjoying watching the thing grow and seeing how the raglan shaping and increases work.  As far as sweaters go, this top-down raglan thing is just my speed - not boring, exactly, but not terribly challenging either - something I can do while watching a movie or two and not be in any danger of fouling up too badly.  Hell, I’ve even begun to think about the possibilities of a cardigan.  Of course I have to finish this first, but it’s coming along :) And (yes, I know you’ve heard this before!) I am so loving this color - every time my eyes land on it they go “Yipee!"…

As far as Chatters goes (or a Friday post, for that matter), all I can tell you is that it’s possible - but not guaranteed because I don’t know where I’m going to be or what I’m going to be doing - aside of the holiday shuffle, that is!  If I don’t see you then, I’ll be back on Monday :)

To those in the states, Happy Thanksgiving!  For those elsewhere, I hope the rest of your week speeds by easily :)

Despite my initial enthusiasm for the pink stole last Friday, things stalled somewhat over the weekend while I dealt with the opening salvo of a nasty cold.  For me, these things follow a very predictable pattern:  There’s a 12-24 hour sore throat followed by 48 hours of heavy congestion, coughing, sneezing, fever, aches and general misery.  If I behave myself, stay in bed, get plenty of fluids and lots of rest, the worst is over after that.  And if I don’t behave myself, well, then there’s Myria who sees that I do :)

Many of the yarns shown on Friday need to be wound into balls and I simply didn’t have the motivation this weekend.  That just seemed way too much like work!

So, to a background of Voyager interspersed with an occasional Hercules, I did this instead:

It’s the same basic design as Blossom except done to adult size and with a rolled brim rather than ribbing.  It was actually a lot of fun and once I got going, I enjoyed figuring out what the next step should be.  This is a great design for encouraging spontaneity and something I should play with more often as I don’t tend to be the most free-spirited of people :) A little loosening of the ideas and approaches is a very good thing.

This starts with a ring into which 12 dcs are worked (worsted weight yarn - Cascade 220, in this case, size 8/H crochet hook).  Each round is increased by 12 dcs evenly spaced until you have the diameter crown you want.  I have a large skull, so I did 6 rounds, ending up with 72 dc stitches.  At that point, I picked up the stitches on a US size 8 (5mm) circular needle and commenced to play :)

Knit a few rounds - how about a few bobbles?  Yeah, sounds good - bobbles it is.  Knit a few more rounds - a little seed stitch, just to keep things interesting?  Why not?  Knit a few rows of seeds and a few more rows plain.  What about a knit/purl pattern that isn’t either seeds or ribbing?  Would that be good?  Hey - worth a try anyway, let’s see what that looks like....

And really, before I knew it I was checking the hat for length and binding off.

Oh - and, besides the fun factor, there’s a real advantage to making a hat this way:

It can hold your materials neatly and help keep things tidy.  I don’t know about you good folks, but that’s something with which I need all the help I can get!

Note: If anyone has seen the top of my coffee table, please let me know?  It seems to have disappeared.  There’s a rumor that it’s lurking under the yarn and projects but there’s no real evidence to substantiate that.  For all I know, it’s run away and joined the French Foreign Legion, slogging away under the name Beau Dacius :)

And then, because I thought there was enough yarn, I did this too:

It’s short because I wasn’t sure just how much yarn I had left.  The pattern is what I think is called a gull wing cable both forward and reversed with a couple of coin cables thrown in for variation.  I haven’t completed the second mitt yet, but it will likely not entirely match the first one - though it will use the same patterns, just arranged differently :) If, when the second mitt is complete, I still have yarn left over, I may see about crocheting a ruffle onto the cuff - you know, just for fun!

Now I need to get dressed because nothing else got done this weekend while I was incubating the plague and we’re running out of essentials - like toilet paper!

Happy Monday :)

Now that I’m home and have my stuff back, I feel a lot better.  Well, except for the cold that is making itself known.  Funny, I almost never get colds so this promises to be a truly irritating interlude :)

I finished the One Row Scarf last night.  It’s about 8 inches wide and about 5 feet long.  It goes with the Short, Fat Stocking Hat.

It was a pleasant discovery to find that my old fingerless gloves go with this set nicely and I’m looking forward to wearing them.  The temperature is in the 60s today, so it’ll be a while yet :)

I also started what I think is going to be a stole out of the myriad pinks I seem to have accumulated in the stash over the last couple of years.

The yarn you can see in the photo is the very last of the Plums and I’ll also be using some (if not all) of the Second Hand Rose and the little bit of Tea Rose that was leftover from making the Dana Victoria mitts.  There’s a whole bunch of other stuff in there too, Classic Elite Wings (pale pink) and Waterspun (hot pink), and Cashmerino (pale orchid) as well as Knitpicks Wool of the Andes (cerise).  There are even a couple of dark colors. Oxblood and eggplant that, coincidentally enough, are both alpacas :)





I don’t quite know where it’s going yet, but I’m sure it will explain itself to me as it goes along - it always does!  I started with seed stitch, as with the watercolor scarves, but what happens from here is anybody’s guess :)

The Autumn Seeds sweater is also moving along slowly but I won’t bother you with another in-progress photo until I get down past the sleeve holes.  Suffice it to say that I am still in love with the color and still haven’t managed to foul up the stitch counts.  Keep your fingers crossed!

Have a great weekend all :)

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your knitting go?
With flicks of the wrists for eyelets and twists,
And pretty ribs all in a row!

Come and join us!  Bring your sense of humor and your knitting :)